


The Tenacity of Lathenil

by YellowShapedBox



Category: Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion, Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim
Genre: Early Fourth Era, Gen, Thalmor, Vignette
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2014-07-24
Updated: 2017-06-13
Packaged: 2018-02-10 05:58:06
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 12
Words: 50,409
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2013675
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/YellowShapedBox/pseuds/YellowShapedBox
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Of the twilight of Summerset, and the life of Lathenil of Sunhold - the lone, half-mad, implacable Altmer who, by sheer force of will, proved one of the greatest foes the Thalmor had ever known. [New and improved first chapter.]</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. The Falsehood of History

**Author's Note:**

> "Series of vignettes" is, of course, a lazy way to write a story. Lathenil is worth two or three full-length fics by my lights.
> 
> However, it is also an easy way to write a story, and it just so happens that, bizarrely, I am the only person to write a fanfic about Lathenil. So I may as well optimize my chances of seeing it through.
> 
> The in-game book series "Rising Threat" is the essential companion piece. But anyone who's played both Skyrim and Oblivion knows that already.

It would become difficult, in time, to recall the first two decades of his life with any confidence, to discern the objective forms behind the violet-gold haze. But Lathenil knew they had been good years, those last years of Summerset unsullied.

He would not, perhaps, have thought so then. Even as a boy, he had been quick to defiance and stubborn to shift from it, and the cause he held to with such ferocity was, then, likely to be a petty one. He was forever diverted from his tutors by trifling curiosities. His promise was far the least of Landowner Carhenil's five children, and the folk of Sunhold, while not cruel outright, certainly didn't take care to hide that assessment.

In memory, it rang in purer notes. He had had a family then. Sunhold had been his city and his countryside to walk, its folk known to him, and they spoke of common truth unafraid.

The years in Firsthold had smiled on him without even the benefit of contrast. That Firsthold Academy had taken note of his symposium performance to begin with was, undoubtedly, a near thing: his mind tended to be soundly made up on most things he chose to dispute, and flexibility was the hallmark of a truly great symposial. He had even made more than his share of technical errors. But that did not in the least dim his pride in going.

That inflexibility also favored him, in a roundabout way, when, fresh to the campus, he came face to face with Master Varellis.

Firsthold Academy, at that time, allowed humans to attend up to the journeyman levels of study – any further was deemed a squandering of the short human lifespan – but the Masters were mer every one. It took centuries to acquire the knowledge necessary to become a Master of a field.

That was the theory. The fault in it was that, for all that longevity, a mer's skull had no more space in it than a man's. There always came a time when a mer must consciously choose what to remember. The Chamber of the Wise knew the secret Truths of their caste, of course, but it was said that after they had passed them on to their children, the vast structure of premises that lay beneath them were yielded, bit by bit, to the knowledge needed to adjudicate the decisions of the Chamber. Lathenil had met many a four-century-old mer who clung fast to what he learned in his first century of life, and more who were swept from their roots entirely in the current of the times.

Master Varellis' choices in this matter had been particularly poor.

At the end of the second week of seminary circle, the Master's model presentation on Queen Potema, which was to serve as the example for the apprentice-scholars' own historical research, was drawing to a close. Every historical perspective recorded on the topic had seen its day, and not a few perspectives on those historians themselves.

The last day, devoted to Potema's downfall, saw Maradora the Icebound hold forth that Uriel III fell because his mother had too often made the decisions for him, while Tertullius Scribus was quite sure she had ceased to advise him at a very early stage, and the boy had, understandably, failed to measure up. There were ample criticisms of both these historians, on the basis of presumed biases on their part which had nothing to do with the question of Uriel III.

Worst, a vast tract of time had been devoted to the theories of the Crystal Tower scholar Ma-Zeh (known everywhere but this seminary circle as The Mad), who had endeavored to prove that all accounts of the Wolf Queen's tyranny – accounts that had taken up most of the preceding week – had simply been fabricated after the fact to secure Cephorus' reign, and Varellis gave Ma-Zeh no more or less credence than anyone else.

And so, standing round in the circle. Lathenil had to ask the question:

"Forgive me, magister – which of the accounts do you believe speak truly? How do you judge?"

Varellis smiled indulgently at the question. "Ah, that is the core of it. There is no real way of knowing which is true. In fact, the only safe conjecture is that none are absolutely true – there are always vested interests at work, and flaws, and partialities. All we can do is to be absolutely comprehensive in our study."

Lathenil cleared his throat. "But Potema herself must have been actually born a Septim, or a bastard – Kintyra likewise. And she must have had a relation with her son. And been a tyrant, or not. Or a cannibal, or a part-daedra, or a vampire, or an underserved noble soul, or any of the other things we've discussed."

"No doubt," said Varellis, his voice turning a little loud and slow. "But there is no way of knowing. All we can apply is comprehensive study."

"To what end?" Lathenil's voice rose, and the deadly flush had come into his cheeks.

"The end is scholarship. That is why you are here." And Varellis turned his back on Lathenil to solicit other queries.

And so Lathenil never returned to Varellis' circle. He spent the next moons in the Library of Firsthold – the tuition paid for that as well as it paid for formal instructions, and the Library, rich in words and mute in foolish interpretations, was a palace of knowledge. There, books might be had from across all the Empire – in a scant two weeks, should the book happen to be in the Imperial City; ships from Firsthold to the capital always kept an Academy mer on board. And the book usually was there.

The service was not free, of course. The charge was actually quite substantial. So he made it up with piecemeal work, copying those pages that were worm-chewed or wearing, and as he did so, they were engraved into his mind. It was study and bread at one. He would, at times, bring pain to his wrist and be able to write no more. It was an intolerable frustration. But soon he had taught himself to write with his left hand as well as his right, that he could do the work with one hand as the other bathed in seawater to soothe it.

And he learned, he thought, some tricks of getting to the truth. He could not in good conscience dismiss a historian's vested interests out of hand. History, lived, couldn't help but cause strong passions. Still less could he count the personal flaws of the historians; these nearly always had nothing to do with the topic at hand. But the closer a writing came to the events, the closer to the truth – unless a source was written before a disaster had entirely unfolded, in which case it was like looking at a leaf and trying to determine the tree, but exposure to more such leaves always helped. Where the histories agreed on little but still held facts in common, those facts were to be deemed elemental. Where a historian had an obvious bias – at the very least, it told of that worldview.

And soon, the elemental threads of history began to show themselves: those courses of action and habits of thought that were always sound, or always perilous.

History was no meaningless exercise in self-justifying scholarship. It was a navigator's chart, marking routes, and harbors, and treacherous reefs. And the fact that no chart can be entirely accurate was no reason to draw deep, placid waters where rocks lie just beneath the surface. Beneath the rough map, there was always a real coastline, and every mortal plied it.

When his father burst into the copying chamber, saw him, and wept, Lathenil belatedly realized he had never informed him of his decision. A long, uncomfortable conversation ensued, in which Lathenil not only learned that he might have been dead in a ditch for all his family knew, but that scribing out full books paid much better, and that he might have thought to use healing potions on those wrists of his, and that he had better take a formal course of study or else come straight home to Sunhold.

He chose Alteration.

For all his love of history, Lathenil had no desire to leap into the field. He was only, at bottom, a guesser. He thought himself a better guesser than many, but guessing was the great Firsthold pastime, and there was no reason to add to the heap. And only a fool would wish to live through a history worth writing about.

But he never stopped returning to the library after the day's magical studies were done with. Never, until the day the daedra burst through the door of the reading room, maces upraised, and he barely escaped with his life. (The damage they wrought on the library itself was minimal; they came to kill, not to burn. He would have cause to remember that later.)

And, from that flight, refuge in Crystal-Like-Law.

He would often wonder what would have come if he had not been taken to that place. If he had not seen the great wonder of Summerset cast to the ground, if he had not witnessed the death and the horror under the coal-red sky, if he had not known his awful cowardice. Would he have spoken as a sane man? Would any in Cyrodiil have had cause to hear his words?

No. If he had never known in all horror the works of the daedra, the Thalmor lie would have meant little to him. If he had never witnessed the efforts of Rynandor, he would never have suspected that lie in the first place. If not for Crystal-Like-Law, he would never have spoken to begin with.

And if he spoke as a madman, even so, what could he do but speak?


	2. Knowledge of the Sleeper

Cool water. Little pinpricks of cool water, no apparent pattern.

The smell of rust, faint on the breath of a fresh breeze.

The sound – the sound of rain upon flagstones. That was the first conscious thought: it was raining. Raining, from a white-grey sky.

Lathenil looked out to the horizon. He turned to every other horizon. As far as he looked across the sky, he could see only the soft grey clouds of midday Summerset, bearing a light, cool rain.

He heard a mad laughter in his ears – felt it convulse his chest – heard a rush of footsteps behind him, strangely insignificant – felt the water on his face warm and swell – began to fall toward the ground, but felt a pair of arms bring him up short.

“Lathenil,” said a woman's voice, one that he felt ought to be more familiar to him. “Can you hear me?”

“Phynaster...” he whispered, emptied of the laughter.

“Yes,” said the voice tremulously. “The gods heard our cries. Raised heroes to deliver us. Now they've given my brother back to me.”

He turned his head in a flash. It truly was Cilandrin. He had feared sorely for her, he knew – _Sunhold had early warning_ , the guard had said, with the weariness of one who'd given tidings to a thousand as desperate as Lathenil had been. _If they aren't with the Summerguard, it's almost certain they're here._ There, in the Crystal Tower. Cilandrin was the only one left outside the keep, the only one in danger.

His mind's ear heard again the rising roar through the branches, imagined his father--

“Lathenil! Stay with me! We're safe... the daedra are gone...”

He forced himself to look into Cilandrin's round face. “I was there,” he said. “Crystal-Like-Law. They brought me across the strait from Firsthold – the runeway, before the daedra found it – but I was kept to the Firsthold quarter. I never saw...”

“There'll be time for that, brother. But now, we go back to the shrine and bear them the good news.”

Lathenil, in some sort of half-automatic reaction to the notion of being hosted, saw the state of his clothing and was amazed at the things his nose must have become inured to. “Not before I see that I'm cleaned up first,” he muttered, disgusted with himself.

 

* * *

 

 

“There, you see?” said the Stendarr priestess who laid out the table, beaming in a satisfied way that, as the faint lines on her face were beginning to show, ran counter to her usual expression. “The clear sky is a welcome sight, but a cool rain has more arguments to make than by sight alone.”

“Very well, Fiorana,” said the youthful male mage beside her, allowing himself the first roll of softloaf. “I'll allow my studies haven't spared me much time for Restoration; I commend you that strength.”

Cilandrin, smiling faintly, shook her head in a kind of disbelief. “Still, it wasn't precisely the first time I'd tried her theory. And it was all we could do at first to persuade you we weren't dremora. But it worked. That's the point.”

“I suppose I ran?” said Lathenil bitterly.

“Well – _yes_ ,” admitted Cilandrin. “But you didn't have so much as a dagger. It's lucky you did run.”

“And the lack of a dagger spared us too much trouble when we managed to close in on you,” said Fiorana drily.

No weapon, no, and nothing but scholar's robes on his back – at the Tower, they'd requisitioned everything of utility. But he had some power of destruction. In itself, it wasn't much, but he could have filled the ranks. In not fleeing, he might have given others heart who _could_ measurably fight, and...

 _This tower will stand so long as our courage does,_ he remembered the Sage Rynandor assuring them a week before the onslaught. Yet how quick they had been to cast aside the crucial qualification! There stood Rynandor at the battlements covering the Queen's passage to safety; that way Lathenil had glanced for one moment of guilty hesitation, and sped away as fast as his feet could carry him.

“I might have tipped the balance,” he said, an acrid lump in his chest. “The Crystal Tower might still stand. But _I ran._ ”

The mage stared so that he needed effort to swallow before he spoke. “Don't be absurd. That battle was lost before it began, never mind any question of it hanging on a hair's breadth.”

“Beridor, by the way,” said Fiorana, before another silence could yawn beneath him. “You've been introduced before, but I don't suppose it registered. He's a student of the Ancient Magic – conducting ley line research.”

Lathenil felt himself drift into pedantry and wholly welcomed his return to that realm. “Which ancient magic is that, exactly?”

Beridor grimaced. “Actually, the proper name is _Dawn Magic_ – the magic of the Dawn Era – but needless to say, we prefer to avoid that term until we can be assured the Camoran heresy is thoroughly rooted out.”

He felt a nudge from Cilandrin. The nudge of a plate of herbs and fresh cheese, to be precise. He must have been eating like a starving beast till now, yet at this meal he'd managed to forget food entirely. “That's what they used in Lady Arranelya's circle, Lathenil,” she said, her smile having gone from distant to downright exuberant. “That's what closed the rifts.”

Lathenil frowned; he needed to sort something out before this conversation ran away with him. “Camoran, though. I remember someone – at the Crystal Tower–” (he turned his mind forcefully away from the path it was taking)– “I remember someone making some sort of scholarly point about the Hart-King and his mistress. All the frantic asking and guessing in the Atrium – I suppose it stood out. Does that have anything to do with – with the daedra?”

“Ah!” said Beridor. “Forgive me, Cilandrin – perhaps he is as sharp as you say after all.” (How often _did_ this fellow hasten to the conclusion that other people were dullards, Lathenil wondered.) “Yes, precisely – their son, Mankar Camoran, led the Mythic Dawn – I suppose that's 'the red-robes' to you,” he added irritably.

“Yes,” said Lathenil, recalling one of the favorite books of his youth, making sense of things he'd merely accepted as oddities before now. “The Hart-King did after all traffick with daedra, didn't he?”

“Debatable,” said Beridor. “Derived from a popular work which is little more than a fanciful horror story with a historic veneer. And it certainly gets one crucial point wrong: the Camoran Usurper was of course a Bosmer of Valenwood, but by all accounts, his son had the look of an Altmer. His mother, by reliable sources, not only gave him his appearance, but – crucially – had the blood of men in her veins.”

“Er – crucially?” Lathenil supposed it must have something to do with Mankar Camoran's creed, but he couldn't see what.

“I should say so. Almost invariably, the Mythic Dawn agents we've captured share this foundational flaw, when they're not men or beastmen outright. It's useful to know, isn't it, with so many still in our midst?”

Lathenil gave Cilandrin an exasperated look.

“Yes, brother,” she said with good humor, “he _is_ one of those Thalmor headcases, but so is Lady Arranelya at that. I can't hold it against him _too_ strongly.”

After a moment's hesitation, Lathenil decided to let the matter lie; after all, he did have several questions more pressing.

First: “Well, then. What of the sealing of the rifts?”

And, savoring the taste of the food for the first time in weeks if not months, he let himself be swept away in the current of conversation, putting no hand to the rudder, so grateful to be out from under the fiery sky and the specter of Destruction that he saw no need to consider where they might be bound.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Beridor is, of course, correct about Mankar Camoran. It's in the application that he screws it up.
> 
> Sorry about the delay, everyone. I made the foolish decision to begin this fic before I made sure Skyrim tallied up with where it was going. (Seriously, you don't get to slow the Thalmor down? Maddening.) But now I have an AU lined up for after this fic's completion - "Next Summer's Seeds" - which somewhat rectifies this state of affairs so I don't have to wait for Elder Scrolls VI to finish this thing.
> 
> Also, this chapter and the next wound up tripping up big-time on lore and needed substantial rethinking. But as a result of my research, I am extremely confident that the next game's setting is going to be Hammerfell. And I am so stoked for that, you guys.


	3. Near to Treason

The rebuilding and resettlement of the Holds continued apace, with every sign they would be successful. Despite the embargo – or perhaps even because of it, Rynandor allowed; he didn't know for certain the Empire's desired policy and it might be an unwittingly harmful one – trade was now nearly what it was before the first rift opened. Life in Summerset was not only celebrated, but actually _lived._

One celebration took the form of a painting in the palace of Alinor, showing Rynandor's defense of the Crystal Tower. Absurdly, it portrayed him in the ceremonial top-knot braid, which glinted silverly atop an overblown Antus Pinder pose – as though the first thing he had done after waking to a thousand dying screams was fix his hair. But that was the topknot he wore now. If Fintar and the rest of Arranelya's vaunted circle dealt so thoroughly and effectively in image, he'd be a fool to forgo the field entirely.

For, with the Isles stabilizing, it was at last the appropriate time for Rynandor to speak some uncomfortable truths he had to this point kept firmly under his cloak.

Not of his visions. His visions could, he knew, be prevented, and when last he'd prayed to Auri-El that he dream the future of Summerset, he'd seen only a confused panoply, more worrisome for the breadth of the whole than for any of the parts. A patch of tundra where two armies of men had fought a ruinous battle. A Breton watchman running wild-eyed for the shore. A tall figure in a gold-threaded black robe, walking what looked to be a bridge on Lake Rumare. A thin and haggard Dunmer archer, presented with silver arrows. A Khajiiti noblewoman, raising her arms in an ecstatic gesture of supplication.

And one image that _did_ have a clear bearing on the future of Summerset. High Queen Faltana, dead, her body lashed to a post in Alinor Square.

No, if he was to change the course, it would do him no good to begin like that.

And there would be no betrayal of state secrets, either. There was no surer way than that to fall on the sword of his own rhetoric. But _he_ knew, and that was enough to put fire in his heart. It was enough to convince him that all the varied and distant fear and death he saw in his visions had the Thalmor at the root.

 _The daedra don't come near because they_ know _an assault would be fruitless,_ he had heard one expert at guesswork tell another in the Sunhold refugees' quarters. And that expert had guessed right. There was power in the daedric siege engine to lay low any wall, yes – any but the walls of Crystal-Like-Law.

As a certainty, this was known to but a few. Rynandor knew. Dagon surely knew. High Commander Fintar knew, for the Chamber of the Wise had entrusted him with the protection of the stone at the heart of the Tower.

And, though Fintar knew in no uncertain terms the grave importance of his duty, the Mythic Dawn – not the most careful of sinister societies, when blood was in the air – had slipped through his defenses without raising the smallest of alarms. And even as in the night, the daedra came with their captives, there was no word that there was anything amiss with the stone, that the Crystal Tower was as vulnerable as any mundane structure.

No charitable option presented itself. The case was black, or it was blacker. Yet Fintar, swanning about without a trace of remorse, collecting accolades and position like peaches from the orchard, had Arranelya's full corroboration, and that of the other Thalmor among the Wise.

(What a phrase that was. Rynandor had had much opportunity to lament the presumptiveness of the term “Wise” for those whose ancestors happened to be privy to the highest secrets, but the very idea of Thalmor wisdom trumped them all.)

But in claiming they had put an end to the Anguish, they had overstretched themselves. Rynandor had been presented with a small demonstration of Dawn Magic a few years ago – a group of mages had changed the shape of a hill, and brought lightning down upon the new pinnacle. Cardinal elements, they had explained. Primordial forces. Certainly, a power to be reckoned with – but, as practiced by mortals, not a power that stirred a blade of bloodgrass outside Nirn. This, then, was Rynandor's staging point; the rest would become apparent as a consequence, if at all.

From the desk, he took up his notes and his _Trials of St. Alessia._ All was now in order. As he ascended his doorstep onto the hill, he inhaled sharply and had to spend a moment leaning against the rail; despite the healer's best efforts,his hip and left leg had never fully recovered from being crushed in the Tower's collapse. He'd gone further distances with far greater setbacks than that, though; after the moment had passed, he set out as briskly as he could for the ampitheatre of Lillandril.

 

* * *

 

 

His speech at Lillandril had indeed provoked a murmur. Cloudrest, having stood safely apart from the Oblivion Crisis by the narrow paths carved right up to its gate, gave him a polite but indifferent reception. When he spoke at Firsthold, though, there began to be talk of action: contesting Thalmor appointments to councils and captainships.

But thus far, that was the pinnacle and from there, he was only losing ground. Since Firsthold, things seemed to keep falling away.

High Priestess Narinelle of the Grand Shrine of Auri-El had been arrested in a tavern brawl which she initiated – the evidence was indisputable and she gave no excuses – and this caused more than a few foolish wits to wonder whether this instability passed to Rynandor, who had always taken her spiritual advice very gravely.

The Cyrodiilic Saint Alessia, having put an end to the Merethic Era, was anathema to a handful even outside the Thalmor, to the degree that they refused to believe, or perhaps even hear, the first word of any work that portrayed her in a positive light. This handful (abetted, quietly but with a poison-dart accuracy, by Arranelya herself) began to forewarn audiences of his dangerous ideas.

The greatest disaster lay entirely at his feet. Rynandor had succumbed – and the struggle was a short one – to telling his High Queen everything he knew, but he did it without preparation, in a rush and a jumble. And now, hers was among the loudest of the voices questioning the sanctity of his mind.

But if he was in the middle of a morass of folly, there was no sense to stopping there. Thus it was that this evening, he addressed the people of Sunhold to parry the charges. (In truth, most of them were strangers to the city – resettlers from other parts, and the subtler strangers who were the new-forged veterans – but they would be true people of Sunhold soon enough.)

His reception promised to be a chilly one. For one thing, Fintar was scheduled to speak after he was, having the last word of the evening. As there were bread and drink and bards scheduled in the Pavilion before he spoke, Rynandor walked among the crowd, not finding much reassurance in the knowing whispers and sudden silences that followed him about the room.

“Well, all right, assume that he _is_ crazy, then,” said one voice that didn't trouble to suppress itself. “Would that change what I saw? Does it wipe all the Sigil Stones in the Summerguard halls from existence? Does it mean that Dawn Magic _does_ have power over an entire Oblivion plane, or that – what, did Rynandor plant a text every Cyrodiilic schoolchild knows centuries in advance, on the off chance daedra would try killing us all someday? He didn't make it up, Fiorana, I studied it myself.”

“Lathenil, if you're actually suggesting...”

As Rynandor looked to the source of the first voice – a short, slight, barely-grown mer with buggy eyes – something happened that hadn't happened to him for more than a century. A waking vision. He saw this mer, impeccable of clothing but hollow of face, dropping to kneel before Ocato of Firsthold with a gratitude so immense it looked to cause him pain.

The Lathenil before him, however, paled and crumpled at his prolonged gaze. “Oh, gods. You remember.”

“Don't be ridiculous; he heard you talk about him,” snapped the priestess he had been speaking to. “He fled the Tower and thinks he could have saved it all by his armorless self,” she explained as Lathenil made gestures of useless protest. “And that you had enough spare time to pick out his face in the crowd.”

“Do you wish me to condemn you, that you still live?” said Rynandor, deciding to take the plunge. One thing was certain, after all: Ocato, first servant of Uriel VII, would never see eye-to-eye with anyone who equated humans with the muck on their boots. “No, the mer I see is no coward. I see resourcefulness, and loyalty, and above all, _tenacity._ I see a mer who pursues a thankless-seeming task long after anyone else would have given up hope, and thus reaps a harvest that no one else could have realized.”

Lathenil stared, his eyes more protuberant than ever. Finally: “I'm... _very_ sure that you've mistaken me for someone else, magister. But – but that's not to say I intend to disappoint you,” he added, and Rynandor knew he meant it to the core.

The beginning of Rynandor's speech was greeted – indeed, assailed – by a cavalcade of catcalls.

“Can't stand anyone else getting the glory, can you?”

“Keep raving! My pleasure!”

“You want to finish what Alessia started?”

“Why so soft on Camoran's boys?”

“Sorry! I can't hear you! Sorry! Say that again?”

Rynandor shook his head at the inanity he was expected to rise to and cast a spell to amplify his voice. (This had the irritating side effect of amplifying every other noise he made as well, from his footsteps to the rustling of his papers, but he could bear with that.) “It appears many present are reluctant to hear my arguments before they refute them. If there are any academy staff here this evening, I would have them take note for admissions purposes.”

The catcallers fell back into silence or their private conversations, to scattered applause.

“Well, as you are apparently aware, I am Sage Rynandor of Lillandril. A veritable atronach of madness or political scheming; I'm not certain which. The trouble, I think, is that my story came second – for while Arranelya and the rest were telling of their greatness and being showered in laurels, I deemed rebuilding a higher priority.

“Many of you, who have come to Sunhold in order to--”

Evidently he wasn't the only one who had learned the amplifying spell, for he began to be shouted down anew.

“Rebuilder, you say! Can you bring back my sisters in the Tower?”

“Justice for the dead of Sunhold!”

“Gods' blood, why is _this_ bastard the one to survive?”

Rynandor slumped against the podium, feeling the throbbing pain in his leg. Next, they'd doubtless accuse him of losing the Tower himself.

No. Phynaster save them, that _was_ next. So few had survived that disaster. He was one. Commander Fintar was another. It was, to so many, one mer's word against another's – and they'd already decided which word to believe.

If he could even make himself heard, what could he say against this calumny? Anticipating an accusation only made it all the stronger. To speak of the stone was to betray the most sacred laws of the Wise.

So he allowed the accusers to shout uncontested until they subsided, gave them his condolences, and pressed on with the rest of the speech as he'd planned it. Though further efforts to drown him out were perfunctory, he fared no better at persuasion than he had in those first few minutes.

Then Fintar took the floor. His speech was short, succinct and unimpeded.

“On behalf of the High Queen and her council – under the Blood-Iron Provision –”

Rynandor turned back, found Lathenil's eyes – easily, for the youth was midway through getting to his feet – and shook his head emphatically.

“Rynandor of Lillandril is to be sequestered, pending exile, on charges of disrupting what fragile peace has emerged from the Anguish.”

The Blood-Iron Provision meant that no one would know his place of detention, and he would not be permitted to mount his own defense. They were terms meant for the remnant of the Mythic Dawn, but there was nothing between Rynandor and the letter of the law.

Then he was exiled. So be it.

“Keep an eye to the truth,” he said by way of farewell – the enchantment had worn off, but his voice carried in the awed hush of the moment. “Mark what the Thalmor do next. Remember me.”

And then two soldiers of the Summerguard were at his side, escorting him away.

* * *

He was kept in impenetrable darkness, his magic powerless. He himself did not know where he was. All he had for company was the taste of prison rations and the sound of his own voice.

His voice, which entreated Auri-El one last time for visions.

The visions had shifted somewhat. Some had gone away, and others come in their place. A gibbet being readied on the White-Gold Tower. Corsairs locked in combat with Hammerfell warships. A young Nord with prematurely white hair, which he darkened with trembling fingers. Five mer gathered around a rough stone table in a rough stone house, a hushed intonation on their lips and smoldering fire in their eyes. And in place of the Redguard man he had seen before, it was Lathenil who presented the Dunmer archer with those silver arrows.

The course had changed – but he couldn't say if it was for the better. And whatever changes had been wrought upon the future, the High Queen was still dead in Alinor Square.


	4. Sight of the Wakeful

_7 Sun's Dawn, 3E434_

_(The very date is uncertain. If Rynandor's more theoretical hypotheses hold, then there is a chance we are in a new dynastic era. But, in the absence of certainty, probability weighs against it.)_

_I once held – indeed I still hold – that only a fool dreams of living through a history worth writing about. But now that such a history is upon me, then the folly is in a failure to record it._

_It will, alas, be an incomplete record. I fear the necessity of the moment trumps my debt to posterity. Should this journal fall into the wrong hands, I can jeopardize no plan that has not been realized, and I can implicate nobody but myself._

The six little marbles converged on one another – they hit one another dead center – as they ricocheted outward in perfect symmetry, Lathenil rushed to mark the maximum distance of one of the copies, only to realize as the copies vanished that they hadn't quite hit in the dead center of the _table._

“What _are_ you doing?” Fiorana was at the doorway; evidently she had grown impatient with the experiment and come up from the entrance hall.

“Toying with Mysticism,” said Lathenil.“I call this one Radial Motion – see, it captures the form and motion in an area about the size of my fingernail, then mirrors it sixfold.”

“Useful?”

“Not in the slightest. Perhaps with tweaks – but you know how mystic spells are about being tweaked. You were at the Pavilion; you'd understand. It's a siege, almost. I need ways to amuse myself behind the barricade.”

“Right,” said Fiorana, pinching between her eyebrows. “How goes that project with the, er, decorative cipher?”

“It's not _quite_ finished,” said Lathenil, but not shamefully; he had at least made headway for once. “I think I have a good notion as to how we get a full message on the belts while still concealing the very existence of a message. It won't represent letters, but _vowel-consonant pairs._ Just the sounds. So, for instance, with T-H –” He crouched down on the floor, where he'd moved the ink and paper for the Mysticism experiment, and drew a set of four elaborate curlicues. “That's La-dhe-ni-il – though of course we won't be using our names.”

“In the cipher that isn't supposed to be recognizable as a message, you mean.”

“Can't be too careful.”

“And if you have three consonants together at once?”

“Pretend there's a schwa sound before the ones that don't get paired.”

Fiorana raised an eyebrow. “Exactly how soon do you expect us to memorize all this?”

Lathenil had expected to announce these circumstances at the meeting proper, and thus couldn't prevent himself from cringing now. “In... in three months' time. That's when we'll be able to fund the expedition. We'd better get down to the parlor; I'd rather not need to repeat myself to the others.”

Before getting to his feet he pocketed the marble, noticing to his dismay that it had a chink in it.

Shasten and Melthis were engaged in a friendly-but-spirited debate about whether “The Fortunate Gambler” should be sung to showcase a bard's talents or sung so the audience could take part. (Melthis took the former side, possibly because her voice was poor even by crowd standards.) Andrathel was staring at Shasten with an intensity that would be disturbing if Lathenil didn't know he was an artist, otherwise bad with faces, and, thus, committing the smith's appearance to memory on their first meeting.

“All right,” called Fiorana, “no more stalling, down to business.”

Lathenil sat up on the hardest leather chair and cleared his throat. “Well, friends, we've made progress. The ship's name is the _Falconbranch._ A small vessel – it simply doesn't have the capacity to supply a long voyage – which essentially narrows down our field of search to the Gold Coast.”

“It's not Hammerfell,” said Andrathel at once. “They haven't taken exiles for decades. If you think _we're_ ill-used by Elsweyr's exile policy, try living entirely on warm sands.”

“And if the Thalmor dictated the destination,” said Melthis, speaking to her fingers as she generally did when she had to volunteer a conjecture, “I don't think they'd choose Valenwood. Trying to live up to their namesake, don't you know. Every Thalmor forum I go to in Alinor these days, they're always trumping up the Bosmer role in Tamriel – as though we need trumping up!” She shook her head in disgust. “I know a few Bosmer who don't see through it, even. Point is, they want favor from those _other_ Aldmeri people, so there's not a chance they'd be setting Rynandor loose in their midst.”

“Perhaps,” said Lathenil, “they _didn't_ dictate the destination. After all, the ship they chose has a crew of old hands, very honest workmen, make it a custom to knock discipline into the reprobates of the seas one captured corsair at a time – these corsairs are humans and Khajiit, mostly. Not my first choice for a crew, if I were Fintar.” (And if he never saw a bottle of liquor again after the harborside inquiries required to determine this, it would be too soon.) “They don't control everything, we have to remember. They aim for key points, but there's a paucity of actual Thalmor to cover them. Even so, Melthis is probably right. We'll need to confirm it, but in the meantime, we can operate under the assumption that it's Anvil.”

“All right,” said Shasten. “What about funds, have we made any progress there?”

Lathenil nodded, and took a deep breath. “I've got that in hand now, too. I'll be selling this place in three months' time – I'll be commiserating with all Sunhold about my gambling debts, maybe losing a few rounds of dice for show, and no one will be surprised when I get desperate for coin.”

“This house!” said Shasten, impressed. “I take it you brought Cilandrin into the fold!”

Of course someone had to twist the knife before he plunged it. Lathenil squeezed his eyes shut, felt his fingernails digging into his palms. “No. In three months, she'll be married to Beridor. She's sailing with his family off the Alinor coast as we speak.”

“Er – Beridor?” said Andrathel.

“Thalmor,” said Melthis. “Not high-ranking, but steeped deep. And not much of a prize if he weren't Thalmor – arrogant twit; I've studied with him in Alinor.”

“Now, now,” said Fiorana. “Arrogant twittery is a Thalmor mainstay; you can't assume they'd remain arrogant twits if separated from--” Lathenil's eyes, which were burning in his sockets, met hers, and she abruptly snapped her mouth shut.

“But surely you've spoken to her!” said Shasten in shock.

“Of course I spoke to her!” snapped Lathenil.

Futile, cold, stammering efforts at persuasion, rapidly degenerating into his shouting at her retreating back whether Rynandor meant anything to her, that she would know better if she'd been at the Pavilion that night, that Beridor was a presumptive up-jump who had no idea what he was getting involved with – at best!... And she shouted back that the bronze in his cheeks only showed he couldn't be reasoned with. That she was ashamed even to mention his existence to Beridor's family (there was that blessing, at least,) and why _shouldn't_ he be pleased with Beridor, he always encouraged her to go for the intellectuals and here's one who helps uncover magicks lost to entire ages of chroniclers, and...

_Lathenil. Please don't take this the wrong way. But I just don't think you're fully recovered from the daedra yet. You're filled with so much fear. Give it time._

But he knew there would never be a time where she had confidence in the soundness of his mind again.

“I... don't believe my words helped matters.”

Melthis bit her lip, then shook her head as though to dislodge the topic like a horsefly. “Plenty of progress, though, all the same. All right, intelligence, infiltration, yes. I'll go first. Aside from the forums – they think I'm flattered; they'll try and get me to do favors soon, I think – I'm spending a lot of time in the alchemy lab. You wouldn't believe the interest they have in poisons, some of them.”

“Assassination,” said Lathenil coldly. “Who?”

“Nobody. No, I don't know who, but it's not assassination, it's more subtle than that. Suggestibility, feeblemindedness – well, they always do talk about playing a long game. But the talk's about humans, beastmen, Dunmer – and the wine glasses of _their_ notables are a bit far for the Thalmor to reach.”

Character assassination, then. In a way that was worse. By the time they were through, they had charged Rynandor with knowingly sending soldiers to die in Oblivion, the better to shore up his own position. Even when they caught up to Rynandor, even if these new plots never came to fruition, the struggle for the truth would be far from over. No doubt Varellis and his ilk would rekindle the debate in any case – no, not in any case, only in the case of a future Summerset that brooked unorthodox opinions at all. Let the historians of tomorrow bicker and fabricate.

“Shasten?” prodded Melthis.

“Nothing to tell, but I've taken up shop with a very good enchanter,” said Shasten. “If the Thalmor want weapons, staves, I'll be among the first to know. And I'll know something of their intended tactics, too.”

Andrathel, satisfied Shasten was finished, bent down to his satchel and produced a roll of thick paper. With a flourish, he produced three thick sheets.

The first was a map of Tamriel, recognizable though oddly rendered by his sketchy style. There was a color gradation of the provinces, and not by boundaries. Skyrim and Cyrodiil were marked red, though they bordered. Summerset was green. Everything else lay somewhere in between, if you went by the spectrum.

The next was a list of titles – sketched from the way the list lay on the table rather than simply memorized; that was Andrathel for you – headed PROSCRIBED MATERIALS. There was plenty of what they'd consider anti-mer propaganda, and there were scattered books on Oblivion and the Dawn Era. Oddly, the Imperial Cult seemed to warrant special attention regardless of connection to either.

The last was a dungeon cell. Apparently unused, but plainly designed and equipped for torture.

“Where did you see all this?” said Melthis in a hushed voice.

“Courtesy of the Lady Arranelya's estate,” said Andrathel with a rakish grin.

Fiorana frowned. “There's no way you had official access. And I don't see the unofficial option being readily available, not with the sort of money she has.”

“Well,” he said sheepishly, “I did have help diverting attention from the inner chambers.”

“Help,” said Lathenil flatly. “Bi'drasha?”

Andrathel, failing to sense the shaky ground he was walking on, only shrugged bashfully. “I don't have any better connections, do you?”

Lathenil jerked to his feet and advanced on the artist's position. “Two rules about accomplices, Andrathel. Two clear rules! They can't know you're targeting the Thalmor – and you can't involve anyone who isn't Aldmeri! Do you think this is a _game?_ Do you honestly believe that if they caught her, they'd mess about with legal niceties? Gods' blood, you've sketched the accommodations yourself!”

Andrathel winced toward his shoes and ran a nervous hand through his inky, rough-cut hair. “They didn't. That's all I can say in my defense.”

“Is that all?” demanded Fiorana. “Aren't any of us going to consider the value of what he got us? Melthis said it – it may not be a lark, but it _is_ a game: a _long_ game. If we shorten the game, we shorten the odds, I say.”

“We'll use what we've obtained,” said Lathenil shortly. “But the policy stands. We will not be compromised, and we will make no needless sacrifices. Do I make myself clear?”

“Yes,” whispered Andrathel.

“Well!” said Shasten after a moment, in artificially conversational tones. “What about Fiorana?”

Fiorana sighed. “I've tried bringing the matter to the Psijic Order. Bloody waste of time, though. They served Artaeum during the Anguish, all right, but anything short of the end of the world, and their approach is so careful and subtle as to be insubstantial.”

Melthis cleared her throat. “A lot to consider, then. But – given what we have on the main objective – I think it's about time we decided which of us goes. Should we go by who's uncovered the best intelligence, or whom we can spare, or – well, whoever goes is going to be less lucky than the rest of us, or more, if we're not lucky, or – oh, bother, it'll be a different fate than the rest of us, anyway. We'll have to consider it carefully. Unless we want to risk casting lots?”

“Please,” laughed Fiorana. “There's no need for that. Think, now: which one of us is thoroughly incapable of keeping their sympathies a secret when pressed?”

Shasten cuffed Lathenil's shoulder. “Sounds like you've been drafted, mate.”

Lathenil strode to the picture window, put the curtain aside a touch. He looked on the cascades of greenery, the graceful, sinuous houses of outer Sunhold, the radiant violet of a clear evening. To leave his homeland behind-- sell his family holdings to strangers, and resign the only family remaining to him to Beridor's flatteries-- yet if he did not, then he saw little prospect of a Summerset worth the name of homeland.

Only for a time, he vowed. He would return, and Rynandor the Bold with him. And Cilandrin would surely heed the greatest general of the Summerguard.

“I accept the task,” he said. “There'll be time enough to hammer out the details. For now – Andrathel, you're nearest the wine shelf – a toast. To Rynandor's return, to the preservation of Summerset.”

“ _Rynandor and Summerset!”_

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm not happy with this chapter, but it does establish plenty of key points, so up it goes whether I'm satisfied or not. Next chapter should be considerably swifter in coming, as most of it's been written already. The chapter title is a classical reference containing the word "shores" - bragging rights to anyone who can guess the rest of it.


	5. Exult, O Shores

_Then speak to me true, 'neath this untroubled sky:_

_What tribute would you have me honor you by?_

Mirabelle Monet didn't think much of Caenlorn's voice, truth be told. It was thin and reedy – like Chancellor Ocato's, actually; perhaps that was why he was playing Dragon in this heraldic duet, but if so, it was a poor decision. Ocato had never precisely been a byword for bardlike charisma.

Of course, half the Flowing Bowl was gathered around to listen regardless. They probably would have done even without the guest of honor to anchor them.

_In truth, at that threshold no foe gathered near..._

Now, no complaints about Astia Inventius as Wolf. Astia's voice was deep and full-throated, carrying both beauty and a martial quality.

Last Seed not even come again, and she was already a critic. Perhaps if the first songs to be bandied about hadn't been such slapdash work... but no, if the Deadlands no longer preoccupied her as they once did, it was a good thing no matter the cause.

Never mind. Find Maenlorn and work out the deal. With sea trade as scanty as it was, she couldn't afford to be undercut.

“Ah-- excuse me,” said a voice behind her – a rather stunted Altmer with sea-hardened garments; crewman of the _Highcrown_ , no doubt, though the rest who hadn't gone off down the Gold Road were sticking fast to the vessel. “You look as though you know the people in these parts. Who is that old man watching the bards?”

_Then I must entreat that you turn all your power_

_To the hour of the king, for the king of the hour!_

The harmony wasn't bad either, for all that Astia and Caenlorn sang on about the same scale.

“That,” said Mirabelle, eyeing this likely patron, “is Ilav Dralgoner.” _He_ was giving the bards his undivided attention, certainly. She couldn't tell with accuracy from this angle, but it seemed as though the miserable old buffer was too occupied to be bitter and acerbic for once.

“Sorry, but I don't know who that is.”

Fair enough. The way the guests were standing about Ilav like a festival fire – something to be near, but not to touch – showed his importance to anyone who paid attention. “He was Primate in the Great Chapel of Akatosh. Kvatch, you know. Just been called to the special Elder Council – to be frank, I hope it drags on a bit, so that he can go back to Kvatch when it's done. He's been helping to transition _our_ Great Chapel, but he doesn't understand the way of Dibella at all, at all.”

The sailor nodded, seeming satisfied with the explanation but disappointed that it didn't go the way he liked. “Not much of an authority on the harbor, then?”

“Oh! Is _that_ what you're looking for! Mirabelle Monet, proprietor of the _Foc'sle_ , at your service – and incidentally, most rumors you may have heard about my service are _entirely_ accurate.”

The Altmer didn't appear interested in that part of the offer – pity that so many elves were so choosy – but there was something that made his eyes go black with excitement all the same. “Then – about the detention of exiles from the provinces –”

_And the shout from the mountain rings out to the Tower:_

_'Tis the hour of the king, and the king of the hour!_

They began the interlude, Caenlorn on the flute and Astia on the drums.

“Well, that much isn't exactly my area. I'd ask at the prison if I were you.”

“Would it be your area to know what vessels have arrived and when?”

“I don't know offhand, usually, but I maintain good records. But –” This whole conversation was quite out of the common way, and Mirabelle's interest was piqued. “ _Highcrown_ , aren't you? The diplomatic vessel? Surely someone aboard would have known--”

A Nordic woman toward the makeshift stage, who had been inclining an ear toward what looked like a cutting mutter from Father Ilav, turned about and yelled, “Ilav Dralgoner of Kvatch wants the whole lot of you to _shut up!_ ”

If he'd said that in so many words, Mirabelle knew he was perfectly willing to tell them himself. But the effect was immediate and universal.

In the silenced inn, Astia and Caenlorn's voices rang out as one.

_All haste to the City, all trust to his claims,_

_His mantle borne true to rekindle the flames!_

_So proud a procession – so widely renowned –_

_Thus swift comes the onslaught, that he not be crowned._

_All strength to the Temple, we shall yet prevail –_

_Nay, so tattered the world that no strength can avail._

_Gaze now on our downfall, that walks our own ground,_

_Now all that we are for destruction is bound –_

_Yet arises the Dragon, that death shall not lower,_

Caenlorn:  _In the hour of the king--_

Astia:  _Who was king but that hour._

Mirabelle hadn't noticed until now, but the strange Altmer seemed ill – pale, shaking – clammy, too, by the looks of it. She opened her mouth to ask after him, but he silenced her with a forceful wave of his hand.

The tempo grew mournful and reflective. Caenlorn began the alternation.

 

_The throne he was made for, though scarcely he knew--_

 

_His tongue was of silver, but only spoke true--_

 

_The guide to the threshold no hell's fire might pass--_

 

_'Twas he, only he, earned the wolf-and-cuirass--_

 

_In gold and in glory our triumph he led--_

 

_He walked the dark paths he'd bear none else to tread--_

 

Together, the bards concluded:

_In truth, at his passing, the grief would be great_

_If the span of his years were one hundred and eight,_

_But ne'er in that time would be equaled the flower_

_Of the hour of the king, of the reign of an hour._

Perhaps it was the looming specter of the council, but for the first time she'd even imagined such a thing, Father Ilav was actually driven to tears. The little Altmer, meanwhile, seemed halfway to fainting. “What is this?” he asked hoarsely.

“I'm afraid I don't understand – if you might be able to pay for a potion, I--”

He shook his head erratically. “I mean to ask, what is the topic of this song?”

Mirabelle blinked. “Er, well, you did hear it fairly well, didn't you? That is, when I told you about Ilav Dralgoner--”

“You told me he was an important clergyman with the power to advise the Elder Council, and I thought that was reason enough for respect! What has he got to do with – with--”

The poor elf wasn't ill after all. He really didn't _know_. “By the Nine, where have they been _keeping_ you?”

He smiled wanly. “The Summerset Isles.”

“Oh,” said Mirabelle, realizing. “The storms – and then the embargo – but I didn't think--”

“The embargo,” he gasped. “By all the gods, I--” He closed his eyes. “I'll need to see these shipping records. At once.”

“Not just yet,” said Mirabelle regretfully. “I have something to see to. Maenlorn, the proprietor here, is undercutting my business – quite rude of him, as my share of the market is narrower to begin with.”

“Ah... Are you saying that because the diplomatic contingent stayed here rather than at the _Foc'sle?_ ”

“Well, yes," said Mirabelle. "Why do you ask?”

“If I were you,” said the Altmer in an undertone, “I'd consider that it may be because Maenlorn is a mer and you are not. Listen – I beg you not to repeat anything that passes between us. My life may depend on it.”

Mirabelle chuckled. “Easily arranged. I may kiss and tell, but that makes it all the easier to keep the rest confidential.” And it took a _very_ seasoned sailor to surpass the pleasure Mirabelle got from hoarding a good secret.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Poetry is difficult, and Walt Whitman I ain't. But as long as I don't need to enroll in the Peeves the Poltergeist School of At Least Not Trying So Hard, as would definitely have happened if I tried expanding on The Fall of Dagon, I'll have to count myself satisfied.


	6. The Wake of the Falconbranch

_Wayfarer in Anvil. Neither ship nor Sage heard of here. Success of original strategy unlikely. Seeking definite answer. Find any purchase you can. Send to Foc'sle. Do not go quietly._

 

 

* * *

 

History was a navigator's chart, showing currents and prevailing winds, shoals and safe harbors. The coastline underneath was very real, and not every map was equal at portraying it. Some errors were a matter of complacency in the cartographer. But not so here. Lathenil had seen a safe harbor at the end of the route marked before him, and now he, the historian, had met with the occupational hazard of the physical cartographer, and run aground.

Whatever had become of Rynandor the Bold, one thing was plain. His knowledge of the coastline had not meant he had the capacity to change the course.

The possibilities, as Lathenil assessed them, were these:

Rynandor had been in a shipwreck. Shipwrecked, while bound in the brig. An inauspicious circumstance, but there was a recurrent figure in history that gave Lathenil hope: the Fortunate Prisoner, the favored of Auri-El. That hope was a slim one, though. In every case Lathenil knew, such figures were completely unknown to history prior to the imprisonment. But the crew may, nonetheless, have had the chance to intervene.

Rynandor had escaped, and was in hiding in Summerset; the records were kept in line with the original plan, so no one would suspect. But in that case – he saw, clear as the evening it had happened, those coppery eyes looking directly into his own, beseeching him not to intervene _–_ in that case, something stark must have happened to turn him against the law in whose hands he had laid himself at the Pavilion.

Rynandor _had_ been exiled, but the destination of Anvil was a diversion planted in the records. If so, he could hardly see why that Thalmor agent would go to the bother. The rest of the provinces certainly had their degrees of unrest, but none of them were declaring embargoes on one another, and information was spread not quickly, but at least freely, between them.

Rynandor had been murdered in captivity.

There were no strong objections to the last postulate, try as Lathenil might to find one. It was in the Thalmor interest: the story of the exiled hero that rose to trouble the unwanted ruler might well predate the linearity of time. It was entirely feasible: the Blood-Iron Provision provided an impenetrable cover for the deed, and Alinor's harbor had been closed to the public on the day of the exile. And he was unwilling to trust much weight to the moral scruples of a group that researched poisons and kept private torture chambers, that had stolen the mantle of Martin Septim and had trodden so thoroughly upon Rynandor's name already.

This did not make it a certainty. If there were any chance Rynandor the Bold were alive, any chance at all, he had to take it. If not, then the foreign effort would rest with _him_ , and if he had swayed anyone even back home, it was on account of their preexisting familiarity with events – certainly not his prepossessing personality or his auspicious exploits.

 _A thankless-seeming task_.

He couldn't escape, now, that Rynandor wasn't offering encouragement or consolation when he told Lathenil of his character. The first thing he had done, upon hearing himself condemned – _sequestered_ , he told himself firmly – was to be sure that he, Lathenil, wouldn't get caught in the fray. The seer-mage had _seen_ something in him, secured his liberty that he might carry the hope of Summerset.

He shook himself. If that were so, then the task that seemed most thankless was the task to pursue. And the _Falconbranch_ was still the best lead he had.

 

* * *

 

 

Fiorana hadn't thought temple service could ever leave her feeling thoroughly useless, but the last she'd dived into her own navel like that, she hadn't been a counter-conspirator tasked with making sure her race didn't turn daft. Now, as conspirators went, she was a purely nominal example.

Melthis was working her fingers to a nub for Lord Gilarnath, and reported he would soon find himself running afoul of the Queen's law, if for less political cause than was ideal.

Shasten had convinced his fellow-craftsman to sabotage by target every Staff of Soul Trap he produced – a trifling advance in the current state of magical theory, but a spellcraft to do Galerion proud, quite apart from the Thalmor demand for the things.

While it apparently suited Andrathel better to insist he'd left the cabal than to introduce his Khajiit friend, what Fiorana had heard from Firsthold Academy had his mark all over it. Certainly _someone_ had to counter the lurching form that called itself the Crystal Tower, and the old genial rival was a logical choice.

Lathenil... he'd turned up empty in Anvil. But there was no helping that, by the sound of it.

As for Fiorana, she mainly hosted meetings so the rest, who were making real progress, could keep up. On occasion she had some clarifying remark – particularly the musing that, as let's not fool ourselves Rynandor was dead, Fintar and probably the rest were liable to kill _anyone_ if it furthered their purpose and they could get away with it. It proved of little utility, unless you counted spooking Andrathel in the credit column.

In the meantime, with country healers out of demand she dealt mainly in consolation and advice, which got fairly platitudinous and light on utility when she was half listening to the petitioner and half wondering if there'd been a genuine Mythic Dawn member sequestered in weeks.

“I could use some guidance. From Stendarr especially.”

Speak of the daedra. Better look her in the eye throughout – looks attentive, might just facilitate actual attention.

Or, she corrected, looking up from her mortar and pestle, perhaps her concentration would be no trouble at all. The eyes were Cilandrin's.

“I'd hoped you – it's so good to see you, Fiorana.” Her manner was as Fiorana remembered it – her face, open and guileless as a gambling-house's dream, filled with concern heartfelt enough to make the most attention-thirsty mer fidget uncomfortably. She felt loathsome to have expected some drastic, terrible transformation. But no sense being incautious, all the same.

“Cilandrin,” said Fiorana in tones of strictly professional concern. “I didn't expect you. What's happened?”

She seated herself upon the marble ledge. “It's... well, it's Lathenil,” she said in a low voice. “He's gone.”

And how, precisely, had it come as a surprise that his sister might be ruffled by that?

“No one's seen him since the wedding – I don't know if you heard, but Beridor and I... well, it was the work of the moment we met, really – just there.” She shyly indicated the brush-willow by the pond. “But Lathenil wasn't happy about it. Thought I was marrying Lord Fintar as part and parcel, I think. _Since the Pavilion,_ he'd always start, as though he were talking of a momentous battle rather than a perfectly sound building that sees controversy of that order about five times a month...”

She closed her eyes. “I'm sorry. I'm not here to recount the squabbles.”

Fiorana nodded gravely, feeling more the fetcher with every noncommittal placation she made.

“Well, he didn't go to the wedding. Not a surprise,” she added hastily, “he refused from the beginning and he's never been one to put decorum first. So I give him a month to himself... come back, by myself of course... and it's a stranger at the door. Maidservant to some s'wit of a dandy. He'd sold the house the day of the wedding, Fiorana, he'd lost everything dicing and never told me a word, and he's not been seen since! No one knows who wanted the money, either, and they're not coming forward and declaring themselves...” Her shoulders shook. “No one even gave it a thought. They knew he'd moved out – where to wasn't their concern. And the Sunhold Watch hasn't turned up a thing. Why should they, after a month...”

Fiorana gave her a bracing hug. She was relatively certain she didn't want her brother dead. The favor probably extended to her, as well. The trouble was in convincing her of the danger – but Cilandrin didn't seem inclined to take chances, and there was no need to single out Beridor, not when he had such an extensive social circle and no desire to keep anything from them...

Cilandrin evidently took the offered shoulder as permission to cry. “And... and Beridor... he's been asking, too, and--” Fiorana must have given some sort of tangible reaction, for she quickly added, “Yes, he's been asking, he's not a bloody... idiot like my brother... Lathenil's the only one who thought they were nemeses... but he heard Lathenil had been knocking back spirits on the Alinor dockside, and it sounds ridiculous, but it _was_ him, no question.” She pulled away, which Fiorana was grateful for as she digested that bit of news. “This... this _debtor_ could be anywhere! And the drink... Fiorana, my brother never liked to be out of his own control. It's bad enough to lose him... but I... I wonder if he _ever_ really came back from the Crystal Tower.”

“Of course he didn't,” said Fiorana briskly. “They never do, or not in the way you mean at any rate. I could tell they never sent you through an Oblivion Gate before you told me as much, remember. If they had, you wouldn't have come back the way you are either. Fact of life, and it's obvious you recognized enough of him by the way you're agonizing about it. But he's gone now, and that's a more serious matter. I'm glad Beridor sent you this way.”

Cilandrin gave a watery laugh. “My idea, actually. Beridor remembers this temple as the place we met, and a station for his research, but I don't think he remembers you at all.”

So the home cabal was all right, then. It was only Lathenil who might have to watch himself – _would_ have to watch himself, if she told Cilandrin the truth at this moment.

The home cabal was all right, except for her feeble part in it.

“Hmph. Well, if he doesn't remember me, could you reintroduce us? I'd like to see what he's been getting up to lately – perhaps help out; I understand the Thalmor have done a lot to rebuild the school of the Crystal Tower, for instance.”

“I thought Stendarr frowned on that sort of thing?”

“You will notice He turned awfully silent about the Mannish case by about the point the Alessian Order came into being,” said Fiorana, using a ludicrous theological argument she'd actually heard confidently espoused not a week ago. “Anyway, we've got an appeal to make.”

Fiorana led Cilandrin down the raised walkway to the altar. Mistaken. Besotted. But Cilandrin was not, all in all, stupid. She'd have to look her husband's politics in the eye soon enough, and when she did, Fiorana would be able to step in.

“Stendarr, Father of Mercy,” she intoned. “We bid You grant safety to Lathenil of Sunhold, wherever he may be. Stendarr, Father of Justice. We bid that any evil dogging him is turned aside, and that the truth of his predicament be made known. In Your name.”

It was not her first double-edged prayer. Stendarr understood, she was sure.

 

* * *

 

Beauty on the mainland was held to different standards, Lathenil mused. He had heard Anvil was beautiful – and certainly it had a charm to it, a serene workaday bustle. He had heard Stros M'kai was beautiful – and the imposing grandeur of the city he saw emerging through the mists was indeed something to behold.

But of the graceful, the beguiling and the dazzling, not only did nothing rival the splendor of Alinor, nothing so much as entered the competition. He had often made remarks in that vein to strangers, but they had never laid eyes on that city, and so thought him insufferable.

He pressed his hand on the great ferry's rail. Perhaps a good chat on architecture would be part of the day's pursuits.

Perhaps fortune would favor him this time.

It did not take him long after docking to regret that he had no more specific address to go on than the city of Stros M'Kai. The place was not reputed to be half the size of the Imperial City, but without the capitol's Ayleid rigidity, that was no comfort – the city's map had simply grown as it went along, like an untended grove, and if he found someone who knew the way to Yarrah the landlord, it was a fair gamble he'd still get the directions wrong at some point.

Grimacing, he retrieved his journal. He would get it written down, even if he had to lose a page for it.

He got there before dark, at least.

“I'm looking for a tenant of yours named Terin,” he said without preamble at the opening of the door.

“Where, and why are you asking?” said a frowsy Redguard woman, eyes narrowed.

“Er,” said Lathenil. “One of your row-houses, if you're Yarrah. I understand you have several. And I ask for the sake of--”

“Feyrah, I wish you'd stop turning every passing stranger away before they've had two words out. It's unkind, and bad for business.” A man looking to be her husband stood in the shoe-hall behind her, while she looked at him with distinct exasperation.

Lathenil cleared his throat, loath to repeat himself so soon. “I was looking for Terin. Altmer, a tenant. His ship would have beached close by Fort Constant?”

The man who was presumably Yarrah frowned. “Yes, I remember. Usually I've got to consult my files, but the mer stick out – and Terin particularly, seeing as... forgive me, stranger, I don't know what your interest is... but he's dead.”

A third death among the _Falconbranch_ survivors, and he was out of survivors he'd heard of. “Murder,” said Lathenil, not bothering to configure it as a question.

“Caught in a burglary, actually.”

Lathenil ground his teeth and went for the last ditch. “Did he ever mention a – a prisoner on his ship?”

“Never heard of a ship, until you brought it up. If a tenant wants to have a tea now and then, I'm happy to oblige, but he wasn't one of those.”

“You can stop any time, my heart,” muttered Feyrah warningly.

Lathenil looked back toward the winding street of the great city. Twilight. That was fitting. Nothing truly shining, only the barest echoes of it. Echoes such as himself.

“I've asked all the questions I need to,” he said faintly. “Not to worry.”

Rynandor might live, despite all this. The deaths of the crew were actually an encouraging sign, in that they were in some way worth killing. But the trail had vanished into the greenery.

He was on his own.

He held out the journal and began to follow the trail back, forgetting in his daze that he had not asked directions at the north port, and that the descending darkness would make even the reading of these bad directions difficult.

He barely had time to realize these things before a hard leather boot to his shin knocked him face-first to the ground, and his journal flew from his hand.

The fall knocked the air from his lungs, the fright made him witless, but he at least writhed into a position where he could see. What he saw was the figure of a particularly hulking Orsimer male with a glass shortsword in hand.

“Piece of cake,” muttered the brute, with a bit of disgust. Lathenil, having managed a breath, tried to dive out of the way, but the Orsimer was quicker. His broad left hand pinned him by the shoulder that hadn't caught his fall, while the right one held the point of the sword just over the hollow of his throat.

“No...” He hated his own cowardice, even as the words passed his lips. “No... please...”

“Right,” said the Orsimer, now crouched so his knees kept Lathenil's legs in place. “Been asked to pass a message. They're all dead, you're looking for a corpse who was never with 'em at any rate, regards on behalf of Fingon or something like that.”

“Rynandor... and... and Summerset...”

“Right, I'll pass that along. That book of yours, too, might get a bit extra--”

Suddenly there was an arrow sprouting from the Orsimer's right eye. He pitched forward, but limply, and the blade fell harmlessly aside.

“I told that fool he meant you no good,” growled Feyrah from behind him, bow in hand.

Lathenil sank further into the cobblestones, trembling in every minute fiber of his body. “Lathenil and Summerset,” he said dully. “Doesn't have much of a ring, does it?”

“What's this Lathenil?”

“Not much of a ring at all.” His breath was quick enough to be his heartbeat.

“Never mind, the less I know of this business the better. If you've got ten septims for the night, Yarrah's got a vacant flat and I'm not giving him the opportunity to tell the next lunk who passes by. Get up, will you!”

As he struggled to his knees, his hand fell on the crosshilt of the cutthroat's sword. He picked it up. At least that much would turn to his favor.

He realized, next morning on the rowhouse floor, that he had left the journal behind. He never knew what became of it.

 

 

* * *

 

Lawlike, he named the blade, and dedicated new courses for himself in its honor as he made his way back to Cyrodiil. He fashioned a hilt within his vest – then another, when the first seam proved too poor. He set himself through paces, so that it was reflexive for him to draw it at any time, no matter that he was prone or holding a book in both hands. He had always been a light sleeper; he put this to use and made himself increasingly dangerous to wake.

Wards, too. His knowledge of wards had always been purely scholastic, and not having anyone tossing fireballs at him he couldn't say how well he was doing with the magical sort, but by the comparative results when he threw himself against the thorn-bushes by the way, Stoneskin seemed to work out well enough.

He attempted to procure books on botany, and was not able to find anything truly comprehensive. But what little he could find, he drank in. Restorative potions were far too expensive to hold to, and if he were to save or gain on the gold he'd paid such a price for, he would need to shore up his alchemy.

Of what he might do for his homeland, under this distant sky, he had only the most inchoate notion. But at the very least, the next Thalmor hire would find an unpleasant surprise awaiting him.

Three times now, he mused, he had come close to death. The first, he had refused to take his father's word for it that the pond was not to be walked into, and learned by trial what most children were content to be told. The second, at the Crystal Tower, he had known the danger well enough, but he had reacted as a coward and learned only honeyed lies in the end. Now as before, he had hardly had the chance to struggle against death, but he had meant to die with his loyalties on his lips, and he had come away with knowledge. He supposed this was progress of a sort.

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The chief Thalmor agent in Colovia at this time has a bit of a gloating problem. This is frowned upon, particularly in these precarious pre-Dominion days. His arc doesn't fit in the parameters of this story and doesn't make much sense anywhere else, but I'm trying to include enough that you can read between the lines.
> 
> Top reasons this chapter has taken forever:
> 
> -Broken laptop keyboard and the virtual one's a bear.  
> -Not-worth-it amounts of effort to incorporate a darkly poetic history for the prison island of Fort Constant. This has since been filed under the correct bleeding fandom and will be posted shortly.  
> -Faffing about.  
> -Writing ahead. A lot. For instance, the epilogue is now twice the length of the rest of these chapters and promises to double. Also the two Interregnum chapters have become three, but that said: George R.R. Martin, you have written four and a half books on this subject and still have the compulsion to drag it out? Get help.  
> -Choice paralysis.


	7. The Bravil Gallants

The Imperial City had held enough tantalizing hope to keep him pinned for half a decade, give or take. It was the seat of the Inner Council, the Imperial Watch, the provincial newsletter with its tantalizing proprietary technology. His sublet at the Waterfront not only gave him communication with his homeland, it proved him the most reputable tenant the housematron had ever had.

But the newsletter told him they only had room for one crank writer, the Watch were indignant about being confused with the Legion, the Legion explained the chain of command rested with the Elder Council, the Elder Council were at first too preoccupied with sifting through a score of pretenders to keep the Empire fully sewn together, never mind hear petitions. After the Council of the First Year there was more stability, but they seemed hard-pressed to agree on mealtimes unless the Potentate weighed in, and the Potentate simply did not entertain solicitors of Lathenil's stature. Only the newspaper outright cast aspersions on his account, but the light air of the others' dismissals did not precisely indicate belief.

But there had been enough avenues that he had been able to believe one of them might not be a dead end. Perversely, the thing that had kept him the most in hope was that during his time in the city, he had narrowly escaped lightning-blasts from a market rooftop, a dagger on the docks, and a poisoned venison haunch at the _Tiber Septim Hotel_. It meant, he believed, that someone at least was heeding him, even if they kept it to themselves lest the same befall them.

But it was not fear of the Thalmor that rebuffed Lathenil's inquiries in the encampment outside Bravil. There was no room for anything so political.

The wisps had begun to feed on the refugees. Vvardenfell itself lay in ash, and most of its people dead beneath it – including anyone who might have had a close look at the Red Mountain. He knew that only the Thalmor stood to benefit from the catastrophe – the Thalmor and the Argonians, to be exacting, but Altmer were stirring things up in Black Marsh, too. He knew, too, that their magic was capable of effecting the eruption. Likely, though, that was all the knowledge he would ever have.

He was glad to have a different purpose in the city.

When it came to good accommodations in the city, there really were none. Before getting to business, on the chance he'd need to stay a while, he'd spent some time in the ordinary of the _Lonely Suitor_ and drawn the innkeep into a discussion of the competition. Of the many insults Gilgondorin at _Silverhome-on-the-Water_ earned, none suggested an inclination to play informant for Thalmor assassins, but the _Lonely Suitor_ still seemed a better bargain: the rough crowd it was reputed for had died down in recent months, Lathenil held to no food he didn't cook himself since his near-poisoning, and either way you slept in a wooden room no doubt slowly rotting away from the festering swamp.

A downstairs flat practically sinking into the strait, though, seemed less desirable than most. Perhaps that was why it had been chosen. The post, and the wooden sign that hung from it, bearing crossed swords and a stag and reading THE BRAVIL GALLANTS, were of newer make than the rest – newer also than the two years the organization had operated, if Lathenil were to judge. Perhaps at first, it had not been advisable to advertise.

Lathenil, in the interest of having every advantage he could, cracked the door open a fraction of an inch, sat casually against the wall, and listened in.

“--ever wonder if he wouldn't give us so much trouble if we hadn't roughed up his son?” came a mer's contralto.

A bluff-sounding man answered, “Maybe he wouldn't and maybe he would, but I can't think you brought me in so I could make exceptions for Counts' sons.”

“No indeed. I'm only... frustrated. Bad enough when I had to lie for Ocato on his account, but...” This was indeed Vienne, then. The Champion of Cyrodiil, on whom his newest scheme rested – though it was somewhat discouraging to hear that the Count of Bravil had accurately reported her opinion of the Potentate.

“I still don't understand why you'd tell Terentius _anything_ you didn't want repeated.”

“Oh, let him repeat as he likes,” said Vienne. “But not as a matter of _state._ You work with what you have – nobody better is asking for the job, you know that, Itius. But I swear, if that man doesn't relent – or if poor Indarys _doesn't_ recover and we _do_ get Count Farwil in Cheydinhal – then not only will I put in a good word for Ocato, I'll petition to the bastard myself.”

Itius chuckled. “No wonder Ocato doesn't allow more people to get on speaking terms with him, if you're a sample. Vienne – no, I don't agree with Terentius – but let's try playing to his perspective. Dunmer brothers and sisters they may be, but even _I_ could tell straight off you've never been raised in the Tribunal tradition. They stopped daedra worship barely a decade ago, assuming they stopped it at all; of course he's uneasy about throwing open the gates.”

“Azura, most of them. I've served Azura myself, and I still think it was the best choice I could have made at the time.”

“Yes, I know. But to Terentius, and most of the locals... well, daedra are daedra. And Mephala's popular enough in Morrowind. It's not all so benign.”

“Well, no,” said Vienne grudgingly. “But, Itius, I've seen Camoran's Paradise. Their hearts don't belong to their daedric princes, whatever they believe. If we show them example and kindness--”

“Example and kindness. Is that what you wanted from me back in Prison District?”

Silence.

“I'm sorry,” said Itius quietly. “I didn't mean for it to come out that way. You didn't _force_ me to go along with it, you know. And as I hear it, the only other task you've thought yourself unequal to was going through a doorway directly into madness itself. Which probably amounts to about the same thing, come to think of it. But –” Itius cleared his throat. “Supposing there's a Mythic Dawn presence in the camp, for instance – what exactly would be the difference?”

Vienne's voice, when it came, sounded carefully meted out. “First impressions, for one thing. Lack of urgency, for another. And if they start killing people, I'll have no trouble responding in kind.”

“I really don't think you want things to get to that juncture.”

Vienne sighed. “All right. I take your point. Well, the refugees _are_ new to this place, after all. Perhaps it's not quite time for our best undercover man to give up the game...”

“I'll transmit that to the Count, then. Let's hope it satisfies him – I don't like leaving them to the wisps any more than you do.”

As it sounded as though Itius was getting set to leave, Lathenil got to his feet (it was second nature, now, for him to do so from any position without putting his hands to the ground – it wasn't a skill he'd yet had need of, but he anticipated the Thalmor to continue being fonts of surprise and thus did his best to compete) and entered the building.

The Bravil Gallants' headquarters were a rather cramped combination of a clerk's office, a larder and an armory. At back, a fairly new stairway upward ended in the sturdiest doorway he'd seen in this town. Vienne herself eyed him from a prominent but unadorned desk, her hair (a strange Dunmer auburn) loose and somewhat frazzled, in a boiled-leather ensemble with the Bravil Gallants insignia pressed into it.

“Good evening, stranger,” she said in a voice both ringing and rote. “What is your business with the Gallants?”

“Now I know you're overworked,” commented Itius, a stocky, mousy-haired Imperial, who was evidently seeing that a few empty packs were loaded before he left. “He's not here for the Gallants. Look at him, he's just about tripped over that loose floorboard because he thought you'd be wearing your Blades-and-Dragon gear.”

Vienne smiled wryly. “The not-to-be-trifled-with getup,” she explained to Lathenil. “Haven't needed it in years, not since... ah...”

“Goldwine Pretender, I think?” said Itius.

“Yes, I think that would be it.” She shook her head as an irritated carthorse might. “If ever you wanted the mark of an adventurer, stranger, there you are. A career in adventure means you defend the life of your good friend the Count and have trouble remembering the precise details afterward. What did you want with _me_ , then?”

The question was put far less graciously than the one pertaining to her organization.

“Champion – I suppose you don't like to be called that, do you?” he put in hastily.

Vienne's level of aggravation only increased. “Well, it suits me better than _Hero of Kvatch_ in any event. My only serious objection to the term is it came from Ocato.” (Having heard Terentius' remarks when he was fomenting for a new Potentate, Lathenil gathered this was a very serious objection.) “Here they call me Dame Vienne, mainly, but I've long since learned that these appellations are entirely out of my control. Just get out with it, will you?”

Lathenil always did prefer not to beat about the bush. “All right. Dame Vienne, I come to ask that what you have done in Bravil, you begin in Alinor, with extreme vigilance, backed by a contingent of Aldmeri mer. There is rot at the highest levels in that city that threatens all Summerset – the races of man, the Empire – already, it has spilled beyond the borders--”

“Vienne,” said Itius warningly, “do you remember your old friend in Skingrad?”

“Yes, but I don't know how you reached the subject,” said Vienne dismissively, but her expression did not soften when she turned toward Lathenil. “So, stranger, you intend to save the world. Time is on your side, you're one of the first takers, best of luck. I hope you are more ruthless than I.”

“But--” Lathenil had steeled himself for rejection, but he hadn't anticipated this base sophistry. “The ruthless can, it is true, thwart serious threats, but it is almost an inevitability that they go on to threaten – do –” He couldn't contain himself. “Do you imagine it was ruthlessness that ended the Great Anguish!”

“I imagine,” said Vienne quietly, “that my lack of it came within a hair's breadth of wrecking all.”

Lathenil saw it, now. The name had not been uttered, but even half a decade gone, the ghost of Martin Septim was a constant, cold presence at her shoulder.

He drew a deep breath. “Dame Vienne. When first I came to the mainland, to Anvil--”

A Redguard male in common workwear stomped through the door, with a mission written all over his face.

“Gogan,” said Vienne at once. “It's not Lessa?”

“Oh, she's a trial,” said Gogan, with a misty smile that said he didn't mean a word of it. “No, it's that someone's been stirring up trouble at the encampment – all but shaking the refugees to hear something indicating that Red Mountain was an Altmer plot – oddly enough, he was an Altmer himself –” It was then that Gogan noticed whom Vienne was talking to.

“Get out,” said Vienne, coldly and simply.

Lathenil stood, but determined to make his protest. “Champion, if there is anything I can do to make amends...”

“The Gallants will no longer permit your presence in the county. If you truly wish to make amends, rather than to expound upon your theory and compel me to abandon this city, I have a dozen quivers, carrying fifty silver arrows apiece. You may deliver them to Artheyn at the encampment on your way out.”

A poor counter, after what the Thalmor had done to them, but it was better, at least, than accomplishing nothing at all. Lathenil nodded his assent; Vienne indicated she had something to discuss with Gogan.

“So, how about that old friend in Skingrad?” he heard Itius say drily, as he managed to get the last of the quivers through the narrow door without damage.

“Well, perhaps,” Vienne admitted. “But there _is_ no good reason for the embargo to go on as long as it has. Morrowind, Black Marsh, now Summerset... Itius, if our task is to rebuild Tamriel, we're not doing a very good job.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I am not at all sure at this point that this NPC isn't a figment of my imagination, but I swear there was a fellow in Bravil who pretended to run a vigilante network, but actually it was just him and he wasn't very good at it. In any case, if that character in fact exists, Vienne made a pretense where he ran the show for a while, until the other Gallants convinced her that a) she might not be a leader per se, but she could hack it well enough with a small band of companions, and b) he, conversely, was total dead weight.


	8. And Come to the Attention of the Great (1)

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The eventual scene with Praxis, Hermia and the gloves was written before the Charlie Hedbo murders. Cross my heart. But that's not to say I'm not applying it to my life after the fact.

The haunted-faced mer seemed torn between awaiting Bidrasha's mystical analysis and rushing one of the exits – and he had not removed his pack or traveling-cloak. Bidrasha elected to speak swiftly.

“He has had no poison.” Bidrasha had learned from childhood that being addressed as _it_ always made the Altmer uncomfortable. “But enchantments, yes.”

He paused, swallowed, then nodded for her to elaborate.

“The ring, to ward against poison – the belt, to ward against enchantment – and the sword, that can never dull. An enchantment known to few enough, high enough, to explain the other two. But _Your Highness_ is not harmed.”

Crown Prince Shadyrn cast a fleeting, disgusted glance toward his sword-hip.

“This one sought enchantments upon the _person_ , not the _body –_ usually a greater possibility.He now sees she was the mystic she advertised herself to be, that is all. But why has he come so far as Firsthold to find one?”

Shadyrn paused, then sighed with resignation. “This far from Alinor, I can avoid remark. Further, I understand you are the best Khajiit mystic who may be seen on short notice, and I feel I may trust a Khajiit in this.”

A rare statement, this, never mind from the High Queen's line. Bidrasha admitted to herself that even the Thalmor could grant her a few advantages.

“Yet whatever you may have divined,” said Shadyrn, his voice cracking, “I _am_ deteriorating, body and mind, and there is no doubt in me but that the Queen's Council has a hand in it.”

“For what cause does he say this?”

“My lady mother will no longer preside over her own council. She turns to gay talk of anything else when I broach the subject, but it's plain she would rather they decide nothing at all than that they meet – it's Arrinaro, Arranelya's brother, who has the weight now. He has won some by his post-Anguish policy notions and cowed the rest – by those same policies, it may be – but though they do not meet as a council they do not disband, nor do they press the point. They stay in the Palace. Waiting. I have seen likenesses of myself, disfigured, though I have not been able to produce them to a third party. I have heard things. Rituals, or chants at the least, though I cannot find their source. And all the while I walk weary, I grow thin, I falter...”

Bidrasha looked him levelly in the eye. “Fear may do that. No poison or magic, but ordinary fear, made constant.”

“Then it _is_ their intent to destroy me.”

Bidrasha nodded sharply; she was not to be sparing here. “He could have heard so much from half the Crystal Tower lecterns. The old hierarchies must be erased, for the Aldmer stand equal in divinity. Under their own Lords and Ladies, these Thalmor are always failing to add.”

Shadyrn gave a feeble laugh. “I hope that was not intended to lessen my fear? But... ha. Yes, it seems Firsthold really _does_ harbor an obsession with Alinor's academy. _Last Stand at Crystal Tower..._ ” The image of Rynandor was daubed on scattered walls throughout the city, marked REMEMBER ME, or ALINOR HAS BANISHED REASON, or other such things. Andrathel had begun this and other such works, even admitted as much to her years ago, but by now, the imitations had come to outnumber the originals. “Does the Hold-King stand with the sentiment?”

Bidrasha had to pity the long-lived races at times. A century and a half as Crown Prince, and not even the present fear had driven him to give the succession any serious thought. “Karoodil's opinion matters little, Your Highness – rumor fails in many things, but not in this. Morgiah...”

It was likely she knew more of Morgiah's interests than the Black Queen herself did; she currently sought an anonymous means of rectifying this.

Not a week after he had called on Bidrasha, six years ago, to dazzle the Lady Arranelya's staff with her powers of illusion, Andrathel had appeared on her doorstep at the small hours of the morning, begging her not to move against the Thalmor again, saying they would have her tortured to death given the slightest chance. Bidrasha had said nothing then, only held him against her until the trembling stopped, but privately she regarded this Thalmor predilection as an excellent argument to continue striking at any further political ambitions they might entertain.

Her first task, before removing herself to Firsthold, was to set herself even with what was already known. Shasten had contact with a smuggler in Lillandrin, and Melthis in Alinor, and both were shipping and receiving tooled belts. On return to her mystic's-house, it became clear that Melthis had twigged to Bidrasha's pursuit, and had contrived to send word to Andrathel about it. But Bidrasha would not be moved, and by now Andrathel, well past simple concession, had taught her how to read the messages on the belts.

The latest, shipped from the Imperial City, read _Harbors placid throughout Anguish in Anvil Sentinel Vivec and anywhere else inquired of. Priestess to research ley lines particularly at home and in the East. Personal notes welcome._

The thoughts that missive inspired never failed to send a chill to the tip of her tail.

“The Black Queen has cause and to spare against the Thalmor,” she finished carefully. “But she keeps common cause with none, least of all one faltering in a higher position. This one would not cross her path.”

“Whose path ought I cross, then?” said Prince Shadyrn, running his fingertips across his bowed forehead. “A moment. You have information. You are of the beast-folk. Do your connections suffice to defend me, preserve the Crown?”

More vividly than waking, Bidrasha saw Andrathel leaning on the doorway, a gentle smile on his lips, a paint-stained apron about his waist, and his eyes wide and intent, drinking her in.

Saw him die in that doorway, at the point of a Summerguard captain's sword. An assassin's dagger. The difference mattered little.

“This one will work alone in this,” she said at last. “She will at the least give his position strength. An alchemist, to begin with, if not perhaps such a good one. They must not have the Palace – yet this one does not fight for politics, Your Highness. She fights for her people, and will not see them in harm's way.” If a few mer stood among those whom she counted as her people, it was better that this foolhardy, necessary Prince did not know it.

* * *

 

Fiorana snorted at Lathenil's latest. Yes, Beridor, just dropped in for supper, wanted to know if your wife's getting any second thoughts and if you've destroyed Vvardenfell lately. If _he'd_ laid waste to a subcontinent, or killed the greatest hero of the Anguish, would he want everyone who nodded at what he said in political debates to know about it? She could sometimes be profoundly grateful that he and his great subtlety were off across the ocean and not...

A rocky beach under a coal-red sky, strewn with the dead and dying and the wreckage of the ships that bore them. She could only save one, an elder – saved her for a dremora's mace, later that day – but the others...

Lathenil was saying the Thalmor had done this.

As a prelude to this dragging half-secession, or to inflate their own reputations, or – well, she could leave motive to those who cared. No possible motive for it would pass Stendarr's muster.

She'd visit. She'd see if she could get a good long moment in Beridor's study. He was usually good about locking it, but there was always the chance. And she'd at least pay attention to Cilandrin, if nothing else.

She helped to watch the premises of Crystal Tower. For the past few years, they had at least been quartered at _a_ crystal tower, though the original article was still an increasingly-weathered pile of rubble outside town. The black students' robes were a good, sober touch, a token of respect for the Tower that was, even if she was learning to associate the journeyman's cowl and gold thread with an aptitude to parrot the Thalmor party line.

But her professional duties... last week, they'd called her to the annex, shown her the cells where they kept those who made trouble on campus, asked her to employ her healing... She had done so with as little hesitation as she could muster – it was, after all, vital to the cause that she was trusted.

But the screams simply wouldn't go away, and she knew she was on slippery ground with Stendarr herself. She really was obligated to balance it out in every way she could.

* * *

 

Lathenil knew, for once, the exact point at which he'd lost Count Matius. But he couldn't see how he might have avoided it. The Thalmor _had_ killed his brother in Ebonheart, when they brought down the Ministry of Truth. To pretend otherwise was to give a terrible half-truth to a profoundly honorable man.

But by that point, the money had begun to give out, again. He sold parlor-magic to children – Radial Motion was a surprising favorite, and he'd managed to learn one that displace his voice, which he could easily put to real use – and tooled belts. Usually with meaningless messages, but sometimes with stray observations or laments, to keep himself fixed to the purpose. It had taken him more than a year to restore his finance that way, and he'd need to go back to trade sooner next time so he always had a good set of robes.

Now he was left with Bruma as his last contact with the Seventh Champion, before he was forced to draft yet another scheme.

At least Narina Carvain was reputedly accustomed to half-truths, and the way she was receiving this black-bearded Nord in hideous formal robes, hovering beside her throne and showering her in effervescent praise, showed she took not much offense to bald insincerity either.

Lathenil sat down at the fringe of the throne room, jotted down a few observations on the Great Sigil Museum east of town, and prepared for a long and silent wait.

At last, the Countess stood, and in genteel tones that managed nonetheless to carry to every corner of the throne room, she declared “I thank you for your company, Bjorn Stone-Fist. Alas, I am already promised in marriage.”

Stone-Fist flushed, opened his mouth once or twice before speaking. “Why wasn't I--”

“Ah, you couldn't have known, it wasn't a week ago,” said the Countess blithely.

“Who?” demanded Stone-Fist.

“Huon Motierre of Daggerfall.”

By the glance that passed between the cleaning attendants, she had not named the lucky gentleman. But Stone-Fist did not appear to register it. “A Breton. A _Breton,_ and...” He gestured aimlessly in the general direction of the entrance hall. “Was all your talk of union between Imperials and Nords another pretty deceit, Narina?”

“That will be all,” said the guard-captain curtly from beside the throne. Bjorn Stone-Fist stalked out, as Carvain called after him, “You will have due compensation should you choose to attend the wedding!”

Well, the red-faced idiot did at least seem to _deserve_ the treatment, which was more than he could say for most such scenes he'd witnessed.

Lathenil stepped forward. For this meeting, he had resolved to beat about all the promising bushes he could. “Before I make my proposal, I must know – who are you marrying really?”

“Erek Free-Winter,” she said in a low voice, smiling in approval that he'd caught that. “They've hated one another since boys, and that lunk is swift to his sword hilt, so I thought it best to distract him with a betrayal from another quarter. Easy enough. Betrayal takes up a good many quarters in that one's mind. But what was your proposal?”

“My lady,” he began, raising his voice. “For six years now, I have been away from the Summerset Isles – not by wish, by necessity – for it is my task and duty to restore the mores of the Altmer, and it has so often been delayed.”

“What mores are those?” Stone-Fist was back, standing at the very edge between throne room and entrance hall with his arms crossed expansively across his chest. The guard captain at Carvain's side cocked an eyebrow; the Countess gestured him to stand down for the moment.

It was a query worth answering, for the Countess's benefit. “That all truth be defended, and that the Truths of the Wise be kept under heavy guard. That law be neither arbitrary, nor cruel to the guilty or the...”

“Those the mores of Jagar Tharn?” he challenged.

“Of Ocato,” answered Lathenil.

“Of Mannimarco?”

“Galerion.”

“And you know what happened to _him_ for his efforts,” said Stone-Fist derisively. Lathenil had thought certain that Nords had a high respect fordeath in battle, but he supposed he'd thought wrong. “And Mankar bloody Camoran--”

“ _Rynandor--_ ”

“Who in Oblivion is that?”

It was a universal response, varying only in its politeness. But he could use it here. “The story begins with him, my lady,” he said, turning back toward the throne. “With Rynandor – a general of the Summerguard – something akin to your Hero of--”

“Can't you answer my bleeding question!” snarled Stone-Fist.

“Hadn't I just... ah.” Stone-Fist did not give the air of a man who wanted to be educated. “Ocato, then. Again.”

“Are you bloody goldskins only of any use when another bloody goldskin is making the mess to begin with?”

“Those are the parameters you set,” said Lathenil peevishly. Yet he was hard-pressed to think of an exception. No, to be fair, Camoran was half an Altmer at best and Tharn less than that, but that would be sacrificing the main point on the altar of the side argument.

“If I may beg your pardon,” said Countess Carvain, a thin, sheer layer of ice over her voice, “do you mean to say you count the Potentate as a hero of the Oblivion Crisis?”

“Yes,” Lathenil snapped. “He kept the Empire intact. That would qualify as heroism, under the circumstances, and if he didn't have men to spare for Bruma, it's because he didn't have enough men _anywhere_. He _sent_ forces to Morrowind, and they're crying sabotage louder than that paranoid Champion of yours.”

 _That paranoid Champion_ , the one he was addressing a Countess to get back on the right foot with... “Well, she's paranoid on that point, anyway,” he added lamely.

“Paranoid!” shouted Stone-Fist. “She is in Windhelm as we speak, doing her level best to save those Morrowinders Ocato didn't ill-use from Argonian hordes that your Altmer with their Altmer mores surely never put up to the slaughter!”

“They are not my Altmer!” screamed Lathenil. “They are precisely the--”

“Pick and choose, will you--”

Carvain nodded to the guard captain, and in moments the both of them were forcibly dragged from the castle premises.

* * *

 

He waited two days for the city watch to forget the incident, before trying the north gate to Cloud Ruler Temple. They had not forgotten, but, with an amusement in their faces that cried out for Lathenil to kick them in the shins, they let him through all the same.

A large, brief puff of smoke behind him, and occasional flashes of light ahead, told that he was watched for the whole grueling trudge up the mountain. This was fair, given that this was the chief stronghold of the Blades and it hadn't been remotely secret for the best part of a decade. They must have a good deal of unwelcome guests.

He prayed to Auri-El he would find a way to exclude himself from that class.

One young Imperial greeted him stiffly, outside the gate. Lathenil assumed there were archers on the ramparts above where he could crane his neck, as well, but it was a good provisional arrangement, given they were a pack of spies.

“Name, trade, business.”

“Lathenil of Sunhold. Petty merchant by trade – historian by vocation – for the soul of the Summerset Isles.”

Already, the young Blade looked uncomfortable.

“I ask that you help me send a message,” he tried. “Nothing more.”

“We're not a messenger service,” said the Blade curtly. “Not as such. For the sake of argument, what does this message entail?”

“It would go toward Dame Vienne in Bravil – no, Windhelm now. It would tell of what the embargo is keeping out, and what it's keeping in, and I don't speak of Alto wine and Welkynd Stones. I speak of knowledge. Every scrap of it. Everything the Thalmor – most of the diplomats and they've kept the rest quiet, to begin with – don't wish to be known.”

“That's... what, Old Mary revivalists?”

“It's a convenient image for them. I hope Queen Ayrenn's soul isn't obliged to watch them at it. It's _all_ down to what's convenient, all of it _._ If it gives them purchase, they will say it – if there is control to be had--”

“So, er, this information?” The young man was straining again not to fidget with discomfort.

“For an instance. They know of Red Mountain – after all it demonstrates that the Aedra have rejected the cursed blood of the Dunmer. They are not told...” He paused. Better not to mention his theories regarding Dawn Magic. The Grandmaster didn't have relatives on Vvardenfell, not that he knew of, and the topic never seemed to do him any favors. “They have been kept from...” He ground his teeth, resolved to admit his own guilt. “They believe, _I_ was made to believe, that the Thalmor were the ones to seal us from Oblivion, and it's still working to their advantage. Devouring the whole foundation we rest on bit by bit. They began--”

The Blades guard raised his hand, gave a minute jerk of his fingers. The gates shuddered open.

* * *

 

There were two flavors of disapproval toward Cilandrin's station in life. One was that Beridor was a horrid, Nord-minded prig for keeping her out of his political life. The other was a mocking poor-dear commiseration that she fell short of those exalted echelons.

Cilandrin found it easy to ignore both, as she knew perfectly well neither was the case. She simply had never had much of an interest in politics. Every time something noteworthy came up in council, there was a wild panic about what would happen if the dice of the issue fell one way or another, and then the die fell and everyone calmed down quickly and got on with their lives, forgetting it had ever been a fuss to begin with.

Unless you took it like her brother, and scared yourself to ruin. To death; she'd had to accept that a long time ago. But even before the months of desperate searching, the sleepless nights, finally the slow, agonizing parting between the hope of his survival and the life ahead of her, politics had never been half as tempting as the joy of learning a new craft. And in either case, Beridor saw that she was content.

Though she might need to humor his interests a bit, soon. She'd hate for the child beneath her heart to grow surrounded by rumors that either the mother or the father must surely be defective.

But not so soon as this evening. Why blather about the fine points of Ayleids and bloodlines with Lord Leyaro, when Gilarnath's skimming-bought house was even finer to behold on the higher floors, and when Leyaro's girl was such a quick study, and eager to learn what she could teach? It certainly had a more direct bearing on motherhood.

“Keep your buckler before you,” she exhorted, pacing about the cushioned floor. “That's what you've got it for. If you let it swing wide, you might as well not have a left arm at-- _oof!”_

Elenwen's padded sword had gone right to her chest through the opening she'd been demonstrating. “Got you!” she yelled, elated.

“We're not sparring yet,” wheezed Cilandrin.

“If it were a real fight I'd have got you,” said Elenwen stubbornly.

Cilandrin shook her head fondly. “In a real fight I wouldn't be swinging my shield out like a ninny, young lady.”

“Well, what if I asked you to demonstrate shield technique first?” Bright girl, but the drawback was she was always on the lookout for an easy shortcut, and never mind quibbles like sense.

“If you'd ask me and I'd listen, it wouldn't be a real fight, now would it? All right, _now_ to the spar. _En garde!_ ”

Elenwen lost in short order, and Cilandrin hadn't really, consciously gone for the win, either.

“All right, maybe we ought to deal with footing first--”

“Milady?” said Melthis the housekeeper from the doorway, in a tentative tone.

“Yes?” said Elenwen at once.

Cilandrin, for her part, regarded _milady_ as a ludicrous affectation with which to address a Landowner _or_ a nine-year-old girl, but realized it probably was meant for the adult in the room. “What's the word, Melthis?”

“There's...” She was gazing down at her own fidgeting fingers. “There's rosehip cordial all over the good rug in the entrance hall, I don't know how it got there but I wondered if I could trouble you for, for assistance?”

Elenwen stared as though she'd just announced she was born on Secunda. “You're the _housekeeper,_ ” she managed.

“Elenwen,” said Cilandrin, in her hark-to-this-lesson-about-life voice, “it doesn't matter half as much who does something as that it gets done. Rosehip cordial is sticky stuff, not a one-person job, unless you want to toss out the rug, or get sugar-beetles. Now, Beridor and your fa are in an important talk, and the steward's out at market. That leaves the two of us, and as a born Artist _and_ a Lord's daughter you outrank me.” And would probably be woeful scrubbing a cloth in the creek in any event, she didn't add.

“But what about the training!” she cried, wounded. “If I outrank you, then that means--”

“It means I'll have to tell your fa about how you wouldn't let me save the rug, because rank means you get the responsibility, too. You've got the thrust-slash-lunge forms down pat – drilling them until I get back won't hurt.”

Melthis nodded with a nervous vigor and scurried almost silently down the stairs, Cilandrin following in her wake.

She looked to the little table by the dining-hall door where the jug of cordial had been. It was still there, and it didn't look like anyone had had the merest sip... She opened her mouth to ask, only to see Melthis pressing a forefinger hard against her lips and darting her eyes toward the door.

“...outside Bruma,” Leyaro was saying, “which makes it _three_ good agents dead, four if you count the orc from the Reserve, and still you insist--”

“She is my _wife,_ ” said Beridor with quiet fury, as though that sentence had everything to do with dead spies in Cyrodiil. “The mother of my child. You've commended me my perception often enough, you'd think you'd do it now.”

“If she is loyal and of true Aldmeri blood, then I presume you will have no trouble broaching the matter,” said Leyaro coldly.

“She's got no _political_ loyalties, if that's what you mean. The subject bores her to tears, or she'd have been here with us long ago. But her loyalty to our family is absolute.”

“Family,” said Leyaro with a delicate ominousness in his voice. “I see.”

“It does make it... difficult to discuss the matter frankly,” Beridor admitted. “She's sure the bastard was killed years ago, in some matter involving gambling arrears. If I told her at this late stage that he was alive, and how badly he needed to die, I don't know that she'd take it too well.”

It was as though the air had become solid around her.

 _These Thalmor loaded_ Rynandor the Bold _into an exile's brig,_ Lathenil had shouted, the last time she'd seen him alive. No, just seen him, he _was_ alive. _What do you think they'd do to_ you _if you started getting in disagreements?_

And she'd answered, _And how long have_ you _been at it without getting shipped off to parts unknown, brother? Or a sanitorium?_

“Not precisely auspicious credentials, Beridor. And there is her small stature to consider, as well...”

The core of his mad argument was the Thalmor were out to silence anyone who questioned them. And they aimed to refute it by killing him for saying so. _Beridor_ aimed...

“She _is_ of pure Altmer blood, I've seen her genealogy. And she would never betray me.”

“As you would never betray her, no doubt.”

“Advisedly,” said Beridor curtly. “Have her watched, long as you like. If it turns out you're right, then all to the glory of the Aldmeri people and I'm not about to be party to a dilution of the blood. But you won't be. Now, were you actually going to brief me on the situation with the Queen's Council, or was that just a pretext for this round of insults to my judgment?”

“A pretext, but a real one. The balance really is growing precarious...”

Melthis looked miserable. “I'm sorry,” she said in a hushed voice. “I thought it was worse, I _made_ it worse...”

Cilandrin jerked toward the jug of cordial, on some level other than conscious thought, and gently, from a height of two inches, poured it out on the good Pellitine rug.

“We have to go now,” she said, voice blank as the inside of a well. “Before I can change my mind. Before they can begin watching me.”

“ _You'll_ go,” she breathed, beginning to roll up the carpet. “I have to stay. Head for Lillandrin, the Empire's smuggling _people_ from the mainland, and they'd want to hear from you. There's a shop called _Uncommon Enchantment_...”

Cilandrin backed toward the front door, rug aligned to block any view of her from the dining hall. “How long can you usually leave Elenwen hanging?”

Melthis winced, as the fresh air wafted upon them. “She's more patient than you'd think, but... Gods. She'll suspect me. It's not _her_ fault she has that ghoul for a father--"

Cilandrin was suddenly very conscious of the life growing within her.

"--but she does, and she's... well, she's sharp.”

“Would Leyaro listen to her?”

“Provisionally. Which is enough for him to... I, I know too much. It's your little brother roped me in in the first place. We're doing this together.”

They were heading for the creek anyway, at least. Stale lessons of campaign logistics came to her in snatches. They'd start out heading for the sea, break off when they were out of sight and the ground was rocky, bear northward, and by the time she'd absorbed all she'd learned, really felt it, they'd be far enough inland that, with any hope, she wouldn't be tempted to turn back.


	9. And Come to the Attention of the Great (2)

“And I _listened_ to her!” Elenwen kicked the sodden rug with a fury.

Beridor shook his head jerkily, eyes remaining fixed on the ebbing currents. “Yes, Elenwen. You listened – because she wasn't deceiving you, she'd have had no reason to do this if your _housekeeper_ hadn't _\--_ ” He rounded on Lord Leyaro. “How dare you accuse me of oversight when you can't even keep an eye on your own household!”

“She was acting more and more like a frightened rabbit for a while,” Elenwen put in. “Melthis. Should we send them away when they behave so?”

Leyaro shook his head gently. “Servants grow uneasy, Elenwen; it's unfortunate, but unavoidable. That is not to say vigilance is ever wasted, but one must distinguish sedition from ordinary servility.” Back to the clipped tones of a superior. “Beridor. Whatever the circumstance, your notions have proven false. This wife of yours _would indeed_ betray us, and now she has.”

And if Leyaro had never broached the subject to begin with--! But Beridor held his tongue.

“Under the circumstances, another must suffice to fill your Palace assignment. You, Beridor, have made a grievous error and must atone for it at once. The Alinor hunting party is garrisoned at the Bend. You will join them in this pursuit.”

On the road to the estate, not three hours before, Cilandrin had remarked on the unbearable tweeness of the houses in that new Bosmer settlement, Greenhaven. And Beridor had nodded and said, _They say the architect wished to accent the natural beauty of these hills. Well, if you'd ever wondered what the Beautiful meant by calling themselves that..._ And she'd laughed gently and leaned into him, without the slightest reserve...

“Before the traitor passes beyond our reach.”

The next time he saw her, it would be to bind her and bear her to Leyaro's secret cellar.

“I...”

“I believe the phrase was _all to the glory of the Aldmeri people_ , was it not?”

“Even your own worthy efforts, perhaps?” snarled Beridor. “What with that servant of yours--”

“My work is, I fear, too essential to be diverted,” said Leyaro, idly examining his fingernails. “And you--”

Beridor's robes became like lead sheet about him, buckling his knees, driving him to the ground. Belatedly, he registered Elenwen's small hand closed upon them.

“You, Beridor, are weak. Weak to the attentions of a half-breed traitor. Defiant to a Lord of the Delivering Circle. An intolerable flaw in the chain shirt of Aldmeris.”

A momentary faltering. That was all. Beridor struggled to stand to make his case, lost purchase, fell face-first into the fetid muck by the streamside.

“Your steel will be tempered,” said Leyaro, and even from the poor view Beridor had, raising his head feebly from the riverbank, he could see the Lord smile bloodlessly in anticipation. “Or you will be destroyed and thrown on the rubbish heap.”

He was a fool. He cursed himself for a fool. One memory, one trivial, meaningless memory, and for it he had turned his back on his line and his people, he had forgotten his grandfathers and their suffering under the yoke of Tiber Septim, he had forsaken his father, the most learned mer he knew, resisting the Empire in Colovia even now...

And he knew, as Lord Leyaro roughly, firmly bound his hands behind his back, that no depth of remorse would do him any good at all.

* * *

 

Kellorn of the Blades rubbed his temples as he sat in the hard glass chair, feeling another headache coming on.

The Thalmor were bad enough, even laying aside their forgery of the last decade's worth of Blades contact with the Isles. Lady Arranelya alone might be worth half a shelf in the Archives. She had Potema's own tongue – had Kellorn not seen for himself the horns of blood-iron jutting from the avenues of the Imperial City, the broken Temple, the blood staining the walls, he might have wondered if he weren't the one being deceived. She knew the crannies of the system as well as any Tong leader, and hid in them not only from the law, but from public censure as well. As Kellorn understood it, she had once been discovered keeping a torture chamber beneath her very house, but had caught wind of the investigation and delayed it for a week, during which she had not only removed the evidence, but magically rearranged the lower level's floor plan so that the accusation appeared to be speaking of another house entirely.

By now, torture under the auspices of the Blood-Iron Provision or the New Crystal Tower Charter _was_ widely known as a cause for outrage – an outrage not much removed from bellyaching, an outrage that knew it was vain and ended in a shrug. All attempts to make a more robust sentiment of it had fallen flat.

What set Kellorn's head throbbing was that the ones to blame for that were not, in the main, the Thalmor.

Taken individually, it was all reasonable enough. Ocato's hands were more than overfilled already, struggling to keep Morrowind _and_ Black Marsh peaceably in the Empire. Summerset _was_ doing very well for herself, no trade with the Empire needed. Council law was inviolate; with the extra century the Altmer got, the capricious Hold-Kings of the early Second Era were only _just_ passed from living memory. At this late stage, utter the name of Martin Septim, even in the more rarefied areas of Firsthold, and you'd bolster your reputation as well by running through the city square with everything on but your trousers.

Collectively, it amounted to the Thalmor standing shoulder-to-shoulder, shields locked into an impervious wall, as the Empire and the legitimate powers of Summerset tripped over their own bootlaces trying to meet them.

Well, if there were one thing to be said for this Alinor contact, Fiorana, it was that formalities didn't seem to hem her in more than good sense would account for. He himself had been called to her chamber under the pretext of witnessing against unruly apprentices, which, what with the paranoid reputation she cultivated and the shock rune she consequently laid across the doorway, ought to suffice.

“Alda – well, she'd be Cilandrin for this – _she'd_ speak grievance against Leyaro if the rest of the family won't,” he told her. “More fool her to _object_ that her husband's fallen off the face of the earth, but I'll take it, and Shasten's got good excuse to look after her girl in the meantime.”

“She would die before she spoke to a magistrate,” said Fiorana bluntly

Of course it had gotten to that pass already. And of course there was nothing like a Fighter's Guild to get onto the case. All mercenary organizations on the Isles had been eradicated toward the end of the Second Dominion, in a last-ditch attempt to bolster the fighting ranks, and the Septim Emperors had seen no need to reinstate them.

“No chance that _she_ might get a personal detail,” said Kellorn wearily.

“Reserved for Princes and higher,” Fiorana affirmed. Summerset's old caste system was more dead than otherwise, but that only made it so the remnants, like the last row of stones in a long-ruined wall, were lying about everywhere to be tripped over.

Now that he'd made sure of that much, it was a good thing he was talking to Fiorana and not anyone of the pious Lillandrin cabal; Fiorana would at least hear him out. He leaned forward (headache momentarily surging) and raised his fingers to a classical steeple. “So much for the three-decade workaday scholar swaying this family, then. But what if it were someone with a little more gravity?”

“Seniority,” suggested Fiorana with a thoughtful frown. She already had the thread, then.

Beridor's father Serranur headed the Thalmor Agency in Colovia. Fiorana's analysis of the operation was peripheral and incomplete, but at the minimum he dabbled a lot in the assassination of inconvenient people. When he looked between Serranur and his superior, Emissary-General Fintar, Kellorn didn't know whether to bet that he'd never been told about the unpleasantness that befell his son, or that he _had_ been told and simply shrugged it off as everyone else in the family seemed to, but the fellow was no loss either way.

Unfortunately, with shipping as it was, planning detailed logistics between the Isles and the Continent was almost begging for a spectacular unraveling. He'd barely managed to _get_ here, arranging on the fly to spend most of the voyage in a barrel of water tucked behind a few dozen barrels of pickles, and if not for his Amulet of Saxhleel he'd have had to be more conspicuous on top of it.

But within reasonable striking distance were the _real_ heavyweights of Moonglimmer Manor. Arreis the Unbowed and Delbar the Fleet, who had sired four generations within those walls, and constantly spoke to them – and lately, every standing forum in the Isles – of just how badly Tiber Septim's men had put them through the wringer when the conquest first hit. Their first meeting while being pursued for separate acts of sedition, all their daring dips and dodges, every injustice and privation they saw. Which, to be fair, was all true, and on the long-lived Isles, even those who distinguished Tiber Septim's conquest from the Empire as a whole found it difficult to appreciate that twenty generations of Emperors had gone by since. But it did have the distasteful side effect of placing their entire line in Arranelya's pocket.

Unless...

He nodded to Fiorana. “Arreis, Delbar, of course they want to avenge the Empire's ills and see their Dominion again. And by the time they wake up and see that, revenge or no revenge, the new Dominion they helped build is giving them nostalgia for the mass executions in Cloudrest, well, they'll have outlived their purpose anyway.”

Fiorana raised her brow. “Then you say it's all in all better to kill just one of them, if it helps tear the thing down instead.”

(She was never one to mince words; Kellorn supposed that, as a priestess who routinely lied her head off, she needed to make sure _something_ was uncompromised. He only hoped that sop to her conscience stopped at the words.)

“As every honest and lawful weapon is failing us, I don't see why we'd scorn to dip into Arranelya's arsenal,” answered Kellorn firmly.

Fiorana stared harshly at the Tower memorandum on her desk, then finally snorted. “You of course know that if anyone hears of this – Leyaro, Melthis, _anyone –_ we'll look back on these fools' years with the purest longing.”

Kellorn hesitated only a moment. “Such dangerous maneuvers are what Blades are for.”

“Then, yes, I'll give you your information. I'll get schedules to coincide, if it's in my power; be sure that they do, if not; keep it between the two of us, and trust you've the sense to do the same.” She smiled then, a faint smile but the first real one he'd ever seen out of her. “The things Leyaro _really_ does for the purity of the cause will be cast in their proper light, won't they.”

* * *

 

Bidrasha saw no councillors about the servants' well, and the other servants preoccupied with their own work. She turned out the stocking in her laundry basket, and smoothed out the paper within.

_Our courier has returned, and stands at our disposal. Firsthold's sovereigns both uncompromised; the King of Skywatch has recovered. A. seems preoccupied. Likely a welcome development, but be sure to find the cause._

Bidrasha smiled in relief at the note on Skywatch, which turned to satisfaction. She already had, the night before. Mentally, she composed a reply to Prince Shadyrn for when his laundry was again dry:

_He believes there is an understanding among those Holds that have not welcomed the Thalmor, for his persuasions here have failed._

The truth was far simpler: a week after her employment at the Palace, Bidrasha had begun to magically veil herself, to follow the Queen's Councillors, one by one. One of Arrinaro's lieutenants had led her to a stock of persuasion poisons he had been preparing; though her alchemy was shaky, she could certainly find innocuous ways to color water or oil. By the time the sun rose, every poison had been changed for a decoy, and the bottles expertly resealed.

When first she crossed paths with the High Queen – it had taken at least a fortnight – she had used the mystic's ways, ensured that she had taken no poison. No doubt Faltana's precise and finicky tastes had been the cause. But truly, the news had been grievous: there was no ensorcellment. Faltana really did hope to escape her Council by turning her back on them and busying herself in the commission of plays and song and sculpture.

It would, of course, have been good if the alliance existed in truth. But an illusory alliance was good, too: their Agencies might act more rashly than they otherwise would, and so awaken a Hold when they had meant to cripple it.

And so, though Bidrasha could not dare _show_ confidence – Khajiit were little better than work-goblins to the Thalmor, and far less to be trusted in a good mood – she harbored it as a glow within her chest throughout the day's scrubbings and polishings.

But that evening, on her usual, brief halt at the door of Arrinaro's study, the glow fled as though it had never been.

“Yet we retain the advantage over Firsthold, while the matter remains contained,” Arrinaro said, discernible through the stone of the door only by long practice on her part. “These Academy wall-daubers are not half so bold as they believe themselves to be.”

It was almost a convulsive motion with which Bidrasha put magical concealment to herself and prolonged her halt.

“Oh, surely,” said a second mer's voice, quavering and fainter still. “Or they would have Agencies their own by now. But such false boldness _is_ how the Subjugation began. Let's not have it be the means to its continuance. What message would you have me bear to the Agency?”

“I have written it. I mean no distrust or offense--”

“No, that _is_ a reasonable precaution at this stage of my life.”

Arrinaro gave a brief, perfunctory laugh. “The short of it, then, for your interest: We have determined their elimination ought to be done overtly. Shouting of their treachery to their own people. In the town square, if it can be done without risk of Morgiah's prisons.”

Andrathel – he had not even had a belt from her since she left for Alinor. She had thought it not worth the risk. She had thought he would otherwise be safe...

“Overtly? They won't be wearing those New Crystal Tower robes, I hope?”

“Hmm. Yes, perhaps an amendment is in order... the Academy is not _wholly_ compromised by the enemy, after all. Scarcely profitable to dissuade those who might welcome us, but for petty academic quibbles... let the Agents plant the Eagle Banner beside the targets on completion, perhaps...”

A silence. No doubt there was the scratching of Arrinaro's quill beneath it. Bidrasha steadied herself, renewed her camouflage, thought only of the doorway before her and the Thalmor within. She must be ready for the courier's emergence.

She was not ready. The door burst open and it was Arrinaro who emerged, hands filled with lightning and – somehow, in spite of the camouflage – charging straight for her. She ducked behind him through the door – it seemed the courier had already gone – no, he was invisible as well, she could hear another set of footsteps in the room – there was no _time_ for this...

Lightning tore into her. It was all she could do to remain standing.

“I always mislike it when one lingers too long at my doorstep,” drawled Arrinaro before loosing a second blast to the position she had dodged toward. “Afraid to fight back, are you? No matter – your body will be identifiable enough...”

The courier's footsteps were receding in a corridor behind him. But Arrinaro was no doubt seeing by her life force. Good for finding her center, not so good for detecting any finer subtleties. She feinted back, then lunged suddenly to force her way past him – with a sleeved forearm, so he did not feel her hairs – and dashed madly in the opposite direction from the courier. His voice was an unfamiliar one. He was likely not well-acquainted with the palace. Therefore, he was heading direct for the kitchen entrance, as his current path indicated. She, then, would weave a subtler way round and intercept him there.

At last, she squirmed her way out of a first-floor window. A fine-robed mer was there in the rapidly darkening twilight, stooped and withered with age, arms relaxed at his sides, gazing at her with a grave curiosity. A messenger's tube was over his shoulder.

“A Khajiit,” he said. (She had not realized she was no longer invisible herself.) “So often your people mistrust the notion of a new Dominion. Why is that?”

“Does he mistake this one for a daughter of the Unbound Aedra?” she hissed. “Come of purest Aldmeris blood?” She did not draw nearer, but turned her ears for the sound of any others. “Or does he simply lie? Give this one the letter.”

“Do you so love the Empire, that casts Elsweyr's exiles to the wastes, to die outlaws' deaths? Have you known the Dominion? I have, ma'Khajiit. Such things did not happen. Not within her borders. And so I must bear this letter.”

Her birth-brothers in Skywatch knew no trouble from the Empire, save that posed by the Crown Princess – and she had thought the Thalmor worth hearing before the Anguish even began. And yet there was such conviction in his voice that she still did not move, and only spoke.

“He must bear the death warrant of innocents?”

“Innocents,” he said, a bitter laugh under his words. “No, not they. The way was paved for Tiber Seprim in precisely that fashion. That they mean to preserve it by Imperialist lies that ought to have died by the year 435 at the utmost... that there have _been_ four centuries of Septimate usurpation in the first place – no, you do not understand the peril of these daubings on the wall, and the guilt of those who craft them. I do only my duty. Farewell.”

He swept gracefully in the direction of the road to Rivergate Stables, deeming the quarrel done with.

The tube at his side held Andrathel's blood on the sandy soil and a black eagle banner staked by his head, the soft grey eyes that once saw everything forever blind.

It was the work of a moment. One moment he was walking unaware, the next she had seized him with claws to the shoulders, smashed him to the ground, and torn out his throat with her teeth. No sport in it. Only the necessity she knew, and the blood soaking her chest.

“No no. No no _no_.” A small, stocky figure rushed toward her, who had been unseen in the last gasp of twilight. How he had been unheard, Bidrasha was not sure. “This can't – _what have you done--”_

She widened her pupils to see a Bosmeri merchant. Probably dockside, by the look of his skin. She bit her tongue between her teeth, realized there was slim chance that she would ever reach Andrathe l with this message, that if she did Shadyrn would have no remaining ally in the palace, and, closing her eyes, she took a chance.

“He must say no more before he reads what is in this messenger's tube.”

No response. She opened her eyes to find him glowing at the kitchen door, in the light of a vanishing scroll. “Locked,” he explained. “Six-tumbler quality. Not a good notion to have anyone come out of that wasp's nest right now.”

Bidrasha held out the tube dumbly, not quite comprehending how the conversation had changed tacks so swiftly.

“I don't doubt you had a good excuse,” said the Bosmer. “Delbar... I don't think he has a firm idea that he's not getting his Second Dominion back.” He shook his head furiously. “Scratch all that present tense. No, _you_ scratched it, claws and all, there's no mistaking these wounds for anything else... Well, I've got no doubt he was doing something horrifying, whether he chose to realize it or not. But I hope you understand what you've done. We had one chance in sight to take down the Thalmor from within, nine days in which to seize the chance, and _you have ruined it!_ ”

“ _The message!_ ” snarled Bidrasha; his accusation was as a swipe to the face. “If it is armament he wishes, he shall have it!”

He opened the tube. “This...” he said at length, “this isn't worthless, I will admit. The Sovereigns of Firsthold would be interested, I'm sure.”

Bidrasha froze. “This one does not trust you with the message,” she said. Partly because the acquaintance was short enough that trust was indeed an issue. Moreso because she had been striving for some time to convey a fairly unbelievable message to the Black Queen, and if it came with firsthand intercepted intelligence and the royal seal of Alinor...

The Bosmer made a face. “While I'm afraid I have no particular reason not to trust _you_. Right response, wrong time, and that's the only explanation that fits. But we'd better clean up quickly. For your people's sake.”

A moment later, she had exchanged shirts with the Bosmer and left him to dispose of the body. She could be snoozing in some corner – this was expected of Khajiit – but she could not be missed.

* * *

 

Andrathel ought to have stopped checking the drop point long ago. It was clear by the first week that Bidrasha was quite serious about stopping communications.

But, evidently, the Crown Prince of Summerset now had a messenger he could trust. Ah, the savor of the small victories!

It came out a bit less sarcastic in his head than he had meant it to. After all, he _had_ checked the drop point, every day, for some clear indication that Bidrasha hadn't run mortally afoul of the palace intrigue she _knew_ was afoot. Always so reckless...

Evidently she shared the sentiment, by the content of the communication.

The warning had done him very little good. Events came rather abreast of the announcement. Not the Thalmor, not directly. But the night before he prepared to take this interception to the Academy Council, Morgiah had fled the city. The ship had been identified, a very fleet craft evidently kept in reserve since her first arrival on Artaeum, but no one knew the motive.

By the time he came to request that they officially sanction the pieces, that the Thalmor knew Firsthold for a political mess they would have no desire to be embroiled in, they had mosy definitely heard. The history master's pleas that all voices be acknowledged could scarcely conceal a squal of trror beneath.

Now they knew him for the mer who'd done the first paintings of Rynandor, and he had no confidence in the safety of that secret from the Thalmor.

He laid the little oilskin package containing a note, and a little sketch of himself by Bidrasha's side, at the drop point. There was no sense, now, in going anywhere but Lillandrin, to join the cabal once more.

On his way out of Firsthold, he saw, daubed under a window, a portrayal of Hold-King Karoodil in a bad imitation of the _Last Stand at Crystal Tower_ pose, captioned YOU'VE ALREADY FORGOTTEN ME.

That was entirely too good a summation of his political achievements as a painter. He wondered if he shouldn't have made for Lillandril the instant Bidrasha left for Alinor bloody Palace.

* * *

 

Perhaps Lathenil ought to have given Leyawiin more of a chance. The city was far less accessible than Bravil, it was true, and far less of a port, but it did lie direct on a route to Summerset. And from Leyawiin he could have walked to Valenwood, if so inclined.

But whenever he recalled the look in the Countess's eyes when she floated the possibility of his being a subtle agent for the Argonian subversives, he thought better of it. True, the Count had begged to differ, arguing that he was, instead, an Ocato partisan from Bravil, but even if he'd been right... those eyes were far, far removed from all mortal reason.

For little better reason than that the Blades, who answered to neither Council nor County, had actually given him a hearing – not that he was allowed to know what had come of it, but it had been his best reception – he had next tried petitioning to another independent militia, called the Knights of the Thorn.

Unfortunately, Lathenil soon discovered that, though the Knights did regard themselves as an independent group, the head of the Knights of the Thorn happened to be the Count of Cheydinhal, and the Count of Cheydinhal happened to be infamously rash and obtuse. The barkeep at _The Two Sisters_ strongly advised that Lathenil route everything but the coutly niceties through Bremman Senyan, the Count's loyal retainer (at the word “retainer,” she had mimed drawing back sharply on a horse's reins.)

And somehow, his preliminary queries had landed him in some upstairs antechamber of Castle Cheydinhal while a member of the county guard gleefully seized the opportunity to bloviate at length to a person unlikely to walk away.

“Now I don't care what they say – there is no cup that can improve the taste of a green-grape wine. Your only hope is to have fish with the meal. Give me a Tamika's any day, or an Alto if it's a formal occasion. Bit pricey, otherwise.”

Lathenil saw an opportunity to get a word in edgewise. “All smuggled, since the Crisis. The embargo--”

“Now, the shallow unflared bowl shape...” The guard's voice completely overrode his, then flattened out to the same dull roar of tips only useful to a hard-drinking gourmand.

It occurred to Lathenil that he had been waiting here, in this obscure room, for hours, being spoken to and told nothing at once. He felt apprehension creep up on him. He shifted his legs, felt his vest. The guard was Imperial through and through, but something about this was ringing very false to him.

And then the guard started to back toward the wide door.

And took point in a formation entering the room behind him. Guards – dressed also in the Cheydinhal colors, but no Dunmer among them and more Altmer than you'd think – surrounded three figures. Bremman Senyan. A young Dunmer dressed so finely he could only be the Count.

At center, a powerful mage of the Summerguard.

Lathenil thought fast. Mostly fighters, by their equipment. Those would have to get close to him, if they wanted his blood.

He edged backward, steadily, from the door.

There were murmurs among the guards, which he could not hear. He noticed they did not move toward him. He was a fool. They knew perfectly well that he was boxed into this room, that the mage would have him even if the rest proved useless...

“Count Indarys!” he cried desperately, readying himself for a leap. “The ley lines, the magic of the Dawn Era! After I am dead, know who it is you have served!”

“Well, that settles that,” said one of the Altmer guards. “Raving.”

“Steward Senyan!” (He remembered he was told he might get farther with the Steward.) “These treacherous mer you obey would destroy the houses of Men! Dismantle the Empire!”

“Impertinent _dog!_ ” screamed Count Indarys, drawing the cutlass from his hip.

“Farwil!” barked Senyan sharply.

It occurred to Lathenil that no one but the Count had, in fact, drawn their weapons.

“It seems I've failed to make introductions,” he went on, with a stony expression that didn't quite reach his dancing eyes. “Lathenil of Sunhold – Ocato of Firsthold. He wished to see you.”

Lathenil stood a moment, frozen. “How I have come to fear my own people,” he muttered, eyes stumbling over the Battlemage markings on the central mer's robe, the Imperial cut of his hair. “Forgive me.”

“Potentate.” He sank to his knees in a daze. Most of him was quite sure that this could not possibly be happening.

“Get up,” said Ocato testily. “I'm no Emperor, and Uriel never put up with bowing and scraping either, not while _I_ was his Battlemage. I understand you're willing to give me a straight answer as to what's going on in the Summerset Isles? Speak, then.”

* * *

 

“I'll admit,” said the Champion of Cyrodiil after they'd descended into the tunnel from the camp, “I did expect more in the way of... permanent structure.” It was to be hoped that she was disappointed by far more than that: on arriving in the harbor, Sentinel's guard had escorted her to the refugee district with nothing more than a look at her face.

“Ah, well.” Artheyn flashed a bitter grin. “A hide tent is called a perfectly respectable dwelling in Hammerfell. The Redguards don't seem to notice freezing their arses off every night. If we don't like it, we're to quarry the stone and mix the mortar ourselves – after a year in the tents and a special pass. Maybe they intend to make sure this business about Vvardenfell being blown to ash isn't to cover up that we're really all thieving exiles from Elsweyr. Quarry's outside the site perimeter, don't you know.”

Vienne smiled slightly. “I take it the Amir of Sentinel doesn't know about this tunnel.”

“No. No, our dear Potentate smoothed the arrangement over with him by laying out in charter that we kept to our little holding-pen. Would I were there when it happened, I'd have shown the damnable usurper--”

“Artheyn.”

His heart sank at the sharpness in her tone and the halt in her step. He just barely restrained himself from a backward glance.

“Ocato _is_ the rightful sovereign of Tamriel. He is no usurper.” Her mouth worked as she glanced toward the ground. “If only because he never had the chance to be.”

That was that, then. If she called Ocato sovereign in the teeth of his betrayal at Bruma, the dispossession of House Hlaalu would never cause her to reconsider. But there were other points to be made clear.

“Much of the Council would have _you_ for Empress, you know.”

“No matter how much I try to dissuade them, yes,” said Vienne wearily, resting her weight against the tunnel's wall. “I hit things very hard and then call in favors for it, and for this they call me a great diplomat. I can scarcely be in enough places at once even as I am.” She snorted. “A charming modesty on my part, of course, and so they'll never get about the business of choosing an _actual_ dynasty.”

Well. Artheyn hadn't thought he'd need to address _that_ matter.

“Then – your words on the matter to the Count of Bravil – they were that you would never birth a dynasty. _Not_ that you would never be an ancestor.”

“Strictly,” said Vienne carefully, “I told him neither. But if you hope I don't aspire to Aetherius – well, I must disappoint you.”

Artheyn simply stood, patient to hear her answer to the actual question.

“Oh, Artheyn.” Vienne seemed between exasperation and despair. “Not you, too.”

“It _has_ been nine years, Dame Vienne. No one grieves for a mere superior so long.”

“But then,” said Vienne softly, “no one who knew Martin would call him a mere superior.”

Artheyn raised an eyebrow. “Does your Grandmaster reminisce in such sighing tones?”

“Not _my_ Grandmaster. I was a Blade for emergency reasons only, I hung up my sword when the emergency had passed, and we haven't spoken in--” She snorted, no doubt seeing how soundly this deflection defeated itself, and thrust up her palms in surrender. “All right. Yes. I _would_ have been his. If Martin would have me. But the world was being torn to ribbons, and my wishes were somewhat beside the point. If he'd gotten himself killed on my account--” She smiled wryly. “Of course, I ought to have known since Kvatch that a love affair wouldn't much tip _that_ balance.”

The smile was trembling, a bit. “No, Artheyn,  _mere_ was never the word for him."

“But never mind that. Consider what I was doing at the time. Leaping through Oblivion Gates. Presenting myself to every count's court in Cyrodiil. Getting fitted for ceremonial plate armor, which I seemed to need to wear every other week as a good-luck talisman for Count Matius and the Imperial Watch and just about every stonemason in Colovia. Attending the Council of the First Year, drawn for the express purpose of finding an heir. I assure you, if I had borne his child, it would have simplified matters immensely. I _would_ have seen her to the throne.”

She scrubbed a hand across her face, eyes shut tightly.

“Vienne,” said Artheyn after a moment. “What if I told you that Morgiah of House Hlaalu had returned to the mainland?”

“Morgiah,” she said blankly. Then: “Of course. Barenziah's daughter. In lieu of the Dragon Blood, the line of Tiber Septim's consort... and of course _she'd_ understand the need for a strong Emperor, she's had a taste of what it is to see an Empire disinegrate. Mm. They do say she's a conniving one. But then, that's usually a better bet for a ruler... Yes. This is welcome news. If I can persuade the Inner Council of the same...”

Artheyn felt a vast relief wash across him.

“Then I thank you. At your soul you may be an Imperial, but your heart remains with your people. I will see that your effort is not forgotten. Rest assured that upon your success, we _will_ avenge Ocato's misdeeds.”

“Dismissing him from his post will suffice, I think. He had me in his power at the Imperial Palace, when I told him of Martin, and of the danger to Bruma. He could easily have cried murder and had me dead on the palace floor before I could reach any more of the counties. He clings to his present power, yes, no matter what pieties he spouts to the contrary. But he is a coward at heart, and there is no need to begin the Empress's reign with the death of a Potentate.”

To Artheyn's ear, Vienne sounded exactly as squeamish as Ocato when it came to the injuries between them. That troubled him. But she was a very willing ally to the cause, which would suffice, regardless.

“Far preferable to leaving him with his power,” said Artheyn. “Then you make for the Imperial City, when we are done here?”

“Soon,” said Vienne, getting back to her feet. “Not directly. After seeing your accommodations, I might see if I can't find Wind Scour Temple to save you all the trouble sneaking about. Granted I'd hardly be the first to search for the place, but if the scholars have progressed since the last go, there's precedent...”

 

* * *

 

Upon arriving at the quarry-camp at the end of the tunnel, Vienne shortly got caught up enough in talk with the organizers that Artheyn did not even need an excuse to detach himself, return to the tunnel, and fall to one knee.

“Can we risk her enmity, my queen?”

Morgiah materialized from her illusory cloak, fiery in the light of the glow-stone set in the beam beside her. “Does Ocato not have her enmity at the moment? Yes. Once the Empire is in hand, we can risk it.”

Artheyn ran his tongue along the roof of his mouth, which tasted suddenly sour. To tread on Vienne's express wishes, after all the Dunmer she had personally sheltered and kept alive... “When the Empire is in hand, when you are Empress, House Hlaalu will be the greatest House of all. What purpose to vengeance then?”

Morgiah's face grew hard and forbidding, reflected in the stone's light like the very image of Mephala above the cremation pit.

“Do you know Ocato's specialty, Artheyn? As a battlemage of the Summerguard.”

“I take it it wasn't Destruction,” said Artheyn nervously.

“Karoodil knew hardly better than you, when he spoke of it. And yet it was his words that drove me here. It was the ancient magic Ocato knew, and knew better than any. The magic of the Dawn Era, when time itself was new and the land changed forms as we change cloaks... Those steeped in the art say the source of it thrums still beneath the earth and the waters. Their order says a great many things besides, a great many falsehoods, and they grasp for power, and those who would stand in their way seem always to end up dead. But the ancient magic... that is all too real.”

She met his eyes with a stare that could have turned him to stone.

“Ocato will not die to avenge our House, Artheyn. He will die to avenge all the dead of Morrowind.”

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I was deeply unhappy with this chapter, hence the delay, but coming back to this latest draft in order to slog through to the chapters that still make me tingle with anticipation, I find I honestly have no idea why. Maybe it had something to do with all the easily-fixed vague trailings-off that greeted me in everyone's dialogue? In any case, I really should not fear my own story.
> 
> Events in the next three chapters are so thick, I'm afraid I'm grouping them by style and subject, rather than chronology between one chapter and the next. Apologies in advance.


	10. The Time to Worry

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Of all the characters I've written, I probably identify most with Lathenil. That's worrying no matter how you look at it, but over the past few months' news cycle, the parallels have only been getting worse and worse.

“Delbar the Fleet,” said Arranelya, smiling openly in these private quarters. “Dead at the hands of a Khajiit – who happens to be handmaiden to the sole heir to the throne. Justice will not be deferred long!”

Arrinaro shook his head mildly. “Actually, it is to our advantage that we do defer.”

Elya ran a horrified hand across her face; there never seemed to be a moment where she entirely ceased to be an orator. “The refuse of Elsweyr, allied to the very throne of the Isles, show hands stained with the noblest Aldmeri blood. How, then, can you counsel patience?”

“Patience?” Arrinaro had to laugh. “A year's patience, at most. Time enough for a truly thorough investigation; time in which my agents can freely observe our Crown Prince, and be sure we know every resource at his disposal. And – I spoke with Emissary-General Fintar only this morning – by the time we accuse him, the mainland agencies indicate we can be sure that his most dangerous possible weapon will no longer be a concern.”

Arranelya fell silent. No doubt this was in part because she knew her brother's hand in the matter. After all she had done to lay groundwork for a Third Dominion, she had no call to feel outclassed, but she was born to competition – and perhaps that was why she had done so much to begin with. But Arrinaro had no doubt that the chief emotion striking his sister dumb was sheer awe at the proposition.

For Prince Shadyrn's greatest possible defense against the accusation, should he slip the net, was to appeal to a higher court. To appeal to the Empire of Man.

Within the year, there would be no higher court.

“Very well.” She nodded thoughtfully. “We do not know what manner of beast could have murdered Delbar the Fleet. But you may rest assured that the Crystal Tower shall be diligent in the search – and we have the highest hopes that all who love our land as he did shall offer us their support.”

She took a deep breath, then laughed giddily. “Thank you, Aro, for warning me of the need to write an elegy for Uriel's pet elf. That will require a _sight_ more finesse.”

 

* * *

 

 

Ocato's hand sliced the air impatiently before Lathenil had got his first sentence out. “Never mind how it began. Apprise me of the situation as it is _now_ , before we waste the day in outdated information.”

(The two guards left in the Castle Cheydinhal chamber, the tall bore with the greatsword and a tough-looking Breton woman, caught one another's eyes as though sharing a funny reminiscence.)

Lathenil, thrown, cleared his throat a few times to properly rearrange his thoughts. “Well. The Thalmor – you _do_ know of them?”

“This era? Very little,” said Ocato shortly. “That is why I am asking _you._ ”

Lathenil took one last deep breath. “A subtle and treacherous lot. They believe that man has no right to stand beside mer. Some believe that men, and beastmen, are not fit to exist at all. They wish to tear themselves from the Empire. They wish to _destroy_ the Empire – I have seen a map, I know not its precise significance, but it represents all Tamriel, and it was drawn with some tactical aim in mind. Even now they are subverting the rightful rule of the Hold-Kings, one by one. My sources claim they have overcome Sunhold in all but name – it does not matter, Potentate. The houses stood, but the people – forgive me. The present situation. They have lately...” Lathenil cast his gaze down from Ocato's face. “They have lately done the same to Firsthold. Morgiah was the sole strength of the city, and she left in the night.”

He glanced up. Ocato's lips were pursed in a pronounced agitation, but he did not, at least, seem to have taken a great blow from the news. Lathenil plunged on.

“Alinor... Alinor stands on the edge of a knife, the Crown and the Council both in the Palace, staring at one another with their hands to their hilts – yes. I had better mention. The Queen's Council is dominated by the Thalmor, who drafted the embargo. The Elder Council representatives, likewise – but then you no doubt surmised that, Phynaster be praised you don't believe a word they say...” 

He took a deep breath.

“Yes. Names. I had better give you names. They might mean something to you, these Lords and Ladies – the titles are of course Ayleid. If they would only dispense with the pretense to succeeding the Dominion entirely! But names. The Sage Arranelya, a silver-tongued deceiver, beloved by the people. Her brother Arrinaro, head of the Queen's Council, who devised the Blood-Iron Provision and the New Crystal Tower Charter. The Artist Leyaro, one of Arranelya's supposed Circle – you must know about that matter, I have heard you can give direct witness against it, but – outdated information. We will speak of it later. _Soon_ , I beg. Leyaro enforces the Thalmor from within; he has tortured subversives in the ranks to death, or else to... compliance. Fintar, another of the Circle, Grand Emissary of Summerset, the voice behind the embargo that has deafened us and shuttered us up...” 

He felt his face twist into a wry and feeble smile. His voice, when it came forth, sounded faint and desperate as though he were dying of thirst:

“Rynandor. Do you know of Rynandor the Bold?" 

Ocato looked severe now, even scornful. “You can't be suggesting _he_ has any voluntary part in this business, can you?" 

Tears leaked from under Lathenil's eyelids, purgative as the cool spring rain, and his smile lost all irony. “You know him. _You know him._ ” He nodded tremblingly. “Murdered, at Fintar's behest.”

Ocato's voice was grave. “Fintar was my commanding officer in Blue Strait. In all likelihood, without his intelligence we would never have won Auridon from the Bosmer – and that's no small token.” 

That had the bitter taste of truth to it. In the Tharn years, the Green Pact was enforced not only on the Bosmer, but on everyone – the Altmer and the men included. Those who obeyed were doomed to a hideous, slow starvation; those who were caught in disobedience met the same fate in prison.

And so the birth-city of the Potentate had been delivered by Lord Fintar. 

This, then, was the point of fracture. The unforgivable offense he never failed to make, and he would shortly be turned away. What recourse now? Perhaps he ought to find a way to return to Summerset. He would likely be no more use there; he might well meet his swift end; but what endeavor had he not now tried, so far from home? If he could only _look_ on Summerset again...

“Yet I can't doubt you for a moment,” Ocato went on.

Lathenil went still in amazement.

“He openly hoped the Empire would collapse about its own ears. He purely _despised_ Men. Had I not appealed to Rynandor over his head about that prisoner we found in the stone schoolhouse – well, I don't know what would have become of him." 

Unless Lathenil was badly muddying together his history of the Simulacrum – and, given the context of the remark, he hardly supposed he was – it had been the last months of the usurpation, and the prisoner in question had been a son of Uriel Septim.

He could not find himself surprised enough for outrage. Or was it that he was too taken aback already? The Potentate of Tamriel was accepting his claims, claims whose truth had been summarily rejected all across Cyrodiil. Had come to _him_ in order to hear them.

“Arranelya, of course, sits in the Chamber of the Wise. Only an ignoramus would fail to know _that._ Now, I fear, it _is_ necessary to digress. Even with a powerful confederate in the Chamber, I cannot fathom how Fintar can have arranged this murder and lived, never mind become a provincial Grand Emissary. Elaborate.”

“The Blood-Iron Provision,” said Lathenil grimly. “A measure written against the Mythic Dawn after the Anguish, or so it was claimed. But they're making no pretense of that now. Any dissenter vocal enough to 'endanger the peace' is shut out of sight, put up for show trial, never seen again. And Rynandor was the first. You have to understand: he was given charge of Crystal-Like-Law, when it fell. Fintar was assigned there also – securing the interior, I think, while Rynandor had the walls. Both survived. Few enough did. So when it came time to denounce him... But now you must know the lie that Rynandor--”

“One moment,” said Ocato, again slicing the sentence in half with his hand. “The words bandied about at inns are third-hand rot on their face, and I needn't tell you how informative the emissaries of Alinor have been. So. Explain what _you_ mean when you say the Crystal Tower 'fell.'”

Lathenil dimly felt his knees collide with the flagstones.

“Deceivers,” he muttered to no one. “ _Deceivers!_ Phynaster curse you, curse you..." 

He felt hands prodding him. Ringing slightly to his left, the voice of the Imperial bore: “He's got a sword. Concealed under his vest.”

“He would have used it by now, if he had meant to.” The female guard. “He is not ill; he is _certainly_ not acting in cold blood. I think he is simply – upset. In accord with his repute. And as for the sword itself... we've all seen how he feels about assassins.”

Light laughter from the big Imperial at this, echoing about his left ear like the distant surf.

“Fell, Potentate,” croaked Lathenil after a moment. “The Tower _fell_. Cast to the ground, before my eyes. You know – you _know_ what the daedra can do. The refugees inside... Sunhold died that day, died and the Thalmor filled the empty husk like a swarm of ants and _why would they not have you know..."_  

After a moment, he raised his head. “No, I think I have the answer. They would not give you reason to suspect that Summerset needed the Empire. They tell of our fragility at home: it gives them power. In Cyrodiil, our strength: it gives them power. If ever there were words for the Thalmor...”

But when he registered Ocato's stricken countenance, he knew that any further words would have to wait.

* * *

 

The agent at the far end of the vessel was sitting a bit too tensely, kept Serranur and the corpse beside him a bit too fixed in his peripheral vision. And he was silent. The silence or the tension would either one be forgivable, but together... 

“I smell an ambush,” said Serranur coldly, his finger pointed toward the offender. “We had better begin again.” 

They were three hours into the exercise, which could take as many as five. But none of his mer permitted themselves a groan.

Serranur, First Agent in Colovia, was not in a mood to be crossed. It was fortunate indeed that such moods had a rousing effect on the effort his mer put in, for nothing else could possibly cheer him. 

This exhaustive, rote preparation went against his grain. He preferred to encourage flexibility, and allow incompetents to face the natural consequences of their incompetence. Tactical gifts grew best in their natural habitat. But here, there was no room for error.

North Nibenay's most promising asset had brought to their attention a grave oversight. South Nibenay, ever the blame-dodgers, had bowed out of the better half of the work. That left Colovia as the linchpin: the arena where Agents would wager the unborn life of the whole Dominion.

The Thalmor did not, often, wager, unless the gamble were between one advantage and another. And Serranur did not look forward to presiding over a gamble of this magnitude. Not for his own sake: whatever the Circle could do to him would be nothing compared to the failure he would have wrought already.

But by the grace of the Aedra, the next excercise (five and a half hours, just to be sure) went off without a hitch. The most worrisome point, Serranur's signal, which was to be watched for throughout and answered at the precise instant it was given, had not once been failed in a fortnight.

“Keep drilling, in my absence,” he said, once they had disposed of the body (maimed perfectly, but now unusable for a repeat exercise). “Midshipmen, be equipped to act from every angle. Cerran –” a competent and promising young agent, with too few existing accomplishments to hope of usurping the Agency itself – “be prepared to take my role in this mission, if necessary. I have an appointment in Anvil." 

He hoped the mer of the _Flowing Bowl_ would prove cooperative, of course. But an asset was an asset, no matter how it was acquired. 

 

* * *

 

The old Argonian laid down his ascetic pack and propped his head against the palace wall, plainly still bone-weary from his journey to the City. “You do realize the profound danger of speaking so plainly of the matter, to anyone not already--” 

“Yes, yes, I know _now_ ,” said Ocato impatiently. “If I did that, never mind the Chamber of the Wise, we'd never have a moment's peace again for all the lunatics who'd crawl out of the woodwork.”

“Yet even now, you do not seem to hold the core-truth, the blood-truth,” said the Argonian with a faint, maddening smile.

“No, I expect not. I assure you your tutelage has been the most irritating string of roundabout waffle I have ever chosen to endure. But at least you had an excuse, and now you'll forgive me if I summon you to put that tutelage to some practical use.”

“Then if I am not to share my knowledge, what am I to do in this eventuality, that advisors from all the eight corners – a reference to the physical-political Tamriel, of course, not to the fabric of –”

“There! You're doing it again, and not for cause, either. What if you had to tell me we had a horde of dremora bearing down on us at this moment? How many clarifications on the history and dimensions of Oblivion would you get through before you got to _take cover_ or _come with me if you want to live_?”

“Ah. Er.” At least one, then. Happy that the fade-scaled old pillar-percher actually realized this was a problem. “Well... what would you wish me to do?”

“Sit in a chair,” answered Ocato. “Confer legitimacy to the proceedings. Artaeum is, technically speaking, a part of the Summerset Isles, and a Council seat retained by the skin of your teeth is no less a Council seat. There's _one_ bureaucratic delay to be glad of, at least.”

 

* * *

 

 

_7 Rain's Hand, 4E10_

_I think I must write nothing substantive of my doings for some time. But what I am not writing promises hope beyond anything since first I came to Anvil._

_To preserve the habit of this record, I turn then to matters of common knowledge._

_It seems Morgiah, Queen of Firsthold, has deserted her people not for any just or forgivable cause, but to make a personal suit for the Ruby Throne. In this endeavor she is supported by the Seventh Champion – an unprecedented token, it seems. She is supported by the Potentate, of course; the real statement from that quarter is when he chooses to withdraw. She is not, however, supported by her own native province, which has had its fill of House Hlaalu, and this is discouraging enough to the Inner Council that Tamriel remains without an Emperor. Nonetheless it is the closest the Elder Council ever has come to agreement on the point, and so she holds out for final agreement from the comfort of a Cheydinhal manor._

_I hardly need add that the councillors of her adopted province, of Summerset, have a hand and a vested interest in this state of affairs._

_She must know perfectly well what befalls Firsthold in her absence. No one has ever named Morgiah lackwit. But they have doubted her good faith as a ruler, and justly so._

_The Imperial pantheon is still strange to me, even after near a decade among its devotees, but I believe Talos is the appropriate deity to entreat on matters of Imperial rule, and I shall do so. It must not be the Black Queen._

* * *

Corran gazed out onto Green Emperor Way in that deceptively unfocused way that had behind it a good deal of thought indeed. “As it stands, we'll be trapped here indefinitely. The political situation either needs to get better – so one of us can be spared – or it needs to get worse, so that someone else would actually _want_ the post. A Blade, perhaps.”

Dela playfully punched his shoulder. “Oh, I don't think you want things quite _that_ bad. An order hidebound enough to declare its own obsolescence isn't lightly brought to its senses.”

“Now, now, let's not have absolutes,” said Corran airily, turning his face toward her. “They serve the good of all the Empire now, don't you know. By which they of course mean their private _notion_ of what's good for the Empire...”

“Would you prefer they used someone else's notion? I've got a list of Councillors they might consult. Jean Renard... Lucrece Donitia... Eurian Vorius...”

Corran threw up his hands in a mock beg for mercy. “All right, all right.”

“I'm still a bit relieved the Blades aren't following the Champion's lead, though.” Dela looked out over Corran's shoulder, over the same tombstones, not really seeing them. “I don't imagine we'd be a match for them, if it came to it.” She sighed. “You're right. This is Blades' work, left to hapless watchmen. But all the same... _trapped?_ I thought you did enjoy it.”

“ _Enjoy_ is a bit much. It's important, it pays well, I do decently enough at it. Do I think the Potentate is a barrel of fun to be with? Not especially. And as long as retirement is out of reach... well.” He grinned sheepishly. “You know.”

It took as much trust to be allowed to resign from Ocato's guard as to enlist. Marriage between guards was out of the question. Romantic entanglements between guards and the general public, moreso yet. But if Corran managed to get leave with honors...

“Just mind you don't let another morning headache give you a black mark. What _is_ the ideal drink arrangement for fooling around on the docks with Gellius and the rest, anyway?”

“Argonian bloodwine,” said Corran at once, grinning rogueishly. “Straight from the oaken cask, preferably.” 

Dela muggingly clapped her hands over her mouth, more genuinely horrified than she cared to let on that Corran was spending the nights of Fredas swimming between the hulls of every trade vessel in Tamriel. “Gellius _is_ a bad apple for your barrel, isn't he?” 

Corran laughed. “Dela, if anything, Waterfront carousing shows he's really come up in the world.”

* * *

 

 

_They tell me to name no names, not even my own. They say all the facts are known to you. So you must know what they want, and if it's wor_

_They wish you to know I am not being treated well. My left thumb is already ruined. I will die by inches here if you don't cooperate. And I don't care what they want, I don't want to die here. Maybe I'm a coward after all, but I don't want to die. Not like this._

* * *

 

_Wayfarer at White-Gold. Conferring at highest level. Situation most auspicious but keep to work. Waterfront address still usable._

“Well.” Shasten rubbed his chin over the lesser draftsman's desk in _Uncommon Enchantment_. “Between that and the Blades, we can't say Lathenil isn't picking up his end.”

“Your little conspiracy actually _said_ that?” Cilandrin cleared her throat, realizing her tones stood in danger of waking Faralda in the little corner bed. Even now she did not suffer rude awakenings gladly, and her inevitable wails would wake old Weldor downstairs. 

Weldor made it the core of his being to have no part in politics; more, he had been led to believe that Cilandrin – Alda – was the mother of Shasten's child, and that the relation between the two was best described as frosty. (This, to freeze the possibility of a real and perilous romance in the bud. It had worked well.)

Softer, she continued: “He's a good many things – impulsive, unstable, absolutely _incapable_ of shutting up – but no one ever accused him of _shiftlessness_. Though... I had imagined the first three would keep him well out of the White-Gold Tower. Does he mean Ocato himself? He must, mustn't he, he scarcely gets the time of day from anyone _not_ of the Isles... and they do say Chancellor Ocato's not exactly even-tempered himself.”

“Keep to work, he says: don't stand around gobsmacked just because things are looking up. Easy enough for us.” The humans of Lillandril's countryside knew that the junior enchanter sold his weapons at a bargain, but even they seemed not to have caught on that humans were getting a special discount. “Fiorana, now... I wonder that she hasn't found a good excuse to stand around already.”

Shasten maintained his cover here because it wasn't in his nature to fill every void with talk. That certainly wouldn't go over at the Crystal Tower – the _New_ Crystal Tower; people were ceasing to qualify the title, but Cilandrin was of Sunhold and had no excuse to do the same.

But no, she couldn't do what Fiorana did either. It was one thing to lie with words; it was another to deceive by action. 

And then there had been Kellorn's latest relay from Alinor. Fiorana had sent word that Beridor was alive and employed at the Tower – alive _for a generous definition of the term_ , she had written. _I may never understand what you saw in him, but we can be certain: it's gone now._

“When the Empire comes,” said Cilandrin quietly, “when the Thalmor are routed... I hope they let me kill Leyaro myself.”

Shasten was probably aghast that such a sweet girl would harbor such fantasies. Kellorn had been. She paid him no mind, but moved to the corner, and began to stroke the hair from Faralda's face. Perhaps, she mused, like a harpist playing a favorite refrain, there was something to the fringe idea that Khajiit were really a form of mer; even at rest, the girl's skinniness was decidedly kittenish.

“I'm glad you won't remember any of this,” she said, looking into those closed, softly-fluttering eyes. “Of course that'll make it difficult to appreciate your Uncle Lathenil for his efforts – you'll see he's an all-around difficult--" 

A crash sounded from the storefront. Faralda began to scream.

“Master Weldor!” barked a voice. “You are to be brought to Alinor's magistrate immediately! 

Cilandrin looked around wildly for the rope ladder, to find Shasten was already securing it to the windowsill. She began to tie Faralda into a sling – she was getting so tall, she could only hope the material would suffice –

“What – what for? Why all the way to Alinor?” Weldor's voice was thick with sleep.

“Your shop has been tied to a number of deadly defects in staves. These staves were in the hands of Summerguard--”

“Ha! Not Summerguard, then, and not Alinor or magistrates either. Necromancers. Shasten! Down here!”

“ _Everyone_ on premises is to be held for investigation--”

Shasten swallowed and moved toward the stairs, heaviest hammer in hand. “I'll hold them off at least,” he said quickly. “If Weldor and I survive we'll be marked – so if Fiorana ever needs to run, it'll be a full set – you go to Andrathel. No connection there." 

Cilandrin met his eye, suspended over the windowsill. “Thank you. For everything.”

Faralda had already forgotten about being awakened and was – almost as vocally – excited to be getting such a ride.

“Quiet, love, _please_ be quiet...”

For the first time, Faralda actually listened. They descended, the battle unabated, no one freed up to investigate the sound of a small girl. She walked almost naturally – perfectly naturally, for a young mother this time of night who didn't think to bring her sword. She could still hear Shasten's voice when the struggle receded from earshot. 

Her last stolen glance at _Uncommon Enchantments_ showed more armed mer rushing to the scene. Gut twisting, she walked on toward Andrathel's cabin.

 

 

* * *

 

 

_It cannot, then, have been revenge. But as I think on it, it need not have been revenge. The enemies of the Aldmer are, after all, deceitful beyond bounds; one can hardly expect such deceit to stop at the threshold of their own belief._

_And yet – what if I had heard Lord Fintar's dying words? I can answer that in a trice: I would likely ignore them, claim them for my own on the slim chance that they marked a sure path, and hope I might be chosen as his successor on my own merit._

_If it were Arranelya, I would heed her, I am sure. She claims from all of us a debt that cannot be paid for centuries, and most accounts say, at any rate, that her inspiration is much more powerful when viewed from afar._

_So I claim. Yet even now, as I bring into fruition the Lady-Sage's deepest desires, how often do I actually think of her?_

_Can I vest the future of the Agency in the notion that my subordinates would carry out my own last wishes?_

_What do I aim by asking such questions? Do I purpose to raise our standards to the level of the debased races?_

_No matter. The effort was never for Fintar and the louts at the Agency; it was for eternity itself, for all true children of Aldmeris, to whom the ambitious cowards in my company are but foam-flecks on a vast, pure sea. And if ever my effort were crowned, it is now._

_That said, my words have now made it necessary that I destroy this journal. But I may safely trust the memory of last night's triumphs to stay with me, long outlasting any misgivings._

* * *

 

Morrowind came first, of course. Morrowind had come first for half a decade. Ocato had been confident, though, that he would soon secure enough of a lull in their struggles that Summerset might at last be seen to. Then, on the evening of Loredas, he would visit Lathenil's Waterfront lodging.

But Ocato had not come. 

Soaked in the night's rain, his audience robe stifling him at the shoulders, Lathenil had still managed to rush his way to the middle of the Palace's second floor before the Imperial Watch stopped him.

“I need to see Ocato,” he panted through the sticking pain in his chest. “At once.”

“Yeah, you and everyone,” said a particularly big and imposing guard.

“Just – tell me that he's up there, will you? He was to meet me around dusk – the Waterfront – send me to the prison if you must, but I can bear witness, if... if he's not... if something...” He filled his lungs for one desperate last ditch. “ _Ocato! Potentate, please answer--_ ” 

A sound cuff on the shoulder promptly silenced him. 

An Altmer guardswoman came running down the hall, a profoundly bemused expression on her face. “He... he actually says to let him in.” She surveyed him. “Oh. _You're_ the missed appointment?” Lathenil belatedly recognized her as one of Ocato's personal detail. 

He took a moment to assess the situation and shakily said, “Escort me to the doors, then. I will not pass through them until I hear his voice for myself.”

“And leave half the palace unmanned?” demanded the big guard.

“An escort of three will do.”

“And Ocato says _let him in_...” muttered another watchman disbelievingly. 

The Altmer nodded with a wry expression. “First a councillor-in-name-only who can't say a plain sentence to save his life, now an Altmer who goes into paranoid hysterics at the first sign of anything to do with the Altmer... I wonder if he doesn't collect eccentric advisors for his own amusement.”

In the end it _was_ Ocato's voice at the door: slurred and unnaturally loud, as though he'd been drinking. “Yes, I forgot you – circumstances being ever so _political_ – why don't you come hear just what I have to contend with.” 

The three guards (including the Altmer, due to Lathenil's laxity of speech) glanced at one another. 

“That was an actual invitation!” Ocato snapped. 

Ocato's study was filled with high-backed chairs almost as austere as those of the Council Table. They were cushioned in the Imperial black and red, surrounded by black and red curtains (no doubt for the convenience of the guards). In fact, there seemed not a scrap of material in the room in any other color, but for a charcoal sketch above the hearth, which portrayed a few Summerguard soldiers at a military encampment. 

Ocato sat in one of these chairs – not the one adjoined to the monolithic black desk – and tossed a tumbler of some liquor down his throat. Lathenil frowned. It was well-known that the Potentate dined only with his hood up, but...

Ocato noticed where he was looking. “The original Councillor's Hood, yes,” he said, waving a hand toward his shoulders where it lay. “Thwarts the effect of any poison known to the alchemists of the Empire. Did you really imagine it would let me get drunk?”

“What's happened, then?” Lathenil continued to stand, not feeling quite comfortable sitting before the Potentate.

“Morrowind. Morrowind. Always Morrowind. They wouldn't accept reinforcements – one fort's enough for what's left of the province, they say, and if there are any more we might as well just fill the rest of the Dunmer with arrows with the same result for Blacklight. Oh, and not rations either. It's giant insect derivatives or nothing, and greater Tamriel hasn't got many to spare. They've built new scrib mines at the outer blast radius, and that'll sustain them in two years or so, but in the meantime most of the Great Houses would rather the commoners starve than eat bread. But they still need to fight the Argonian incursions, and the Council in the end sent the Great Houses a shipment of powerful staves: very effective in the short term, you understand.”

“You're – you're arming one province against another?”

“These incursions aren't Black Marsh dictate, but the work of independent militias. But all the same, yes, it has more or less gotten to that pass. You wouldn't believe how a crisis can sneak up on you. But as for their use of the staves, they didn't bother fighting the Argonians. Why would they? No, they chose to rid Blacklight of what was left of House Hlaalu.”

“A message to Morgiah,” said Lathenil grimly. He had been wondering how this was going to come back to Summerset.

“A message to the Empire.” Ocato lolled his head back, grimacing. “Showing they hold us in contempt. Much more important than defending their borders. That's the rub, that's the one thing you never quite understand until you've had a good long career in politics: the powerful _don't_ look after their own interests. They're too powerful to think they need to. They're madmen to a one, Lathenil. Don't think me an exception, either: were I looking after my interests, I would have resigned decades ago.”

Almost plaintively, he added: “I only wish Ebel were here.”

“Ah... Prince Ebel? I've heard nothing of what might have suited him for Emperor--”

“A fine illustration!” roared Ocato. “The whole Empire expects my every utterance to represent some – some _affair of state_!” He nodded, gloomily. “Don't get me wrong – you're a very loyal... very loyal subject. And I don't need to pry your main objective out of you with a clamp, better still. But Ebel... in all these decades, Ebel is the only one who ever thought of me as a friend.” He snorted. “And if I hadn't saved his life back in 399, I would never have gotten into this fix.”

“On the other hand,” said Lathenil with some hesitation, “you _did_ save his life." 

Ocato laughed, rather disjointedly. “There is that.” He shook his head. “Now – I can see it in your face – don't spoil the moment by telling me I'd be a fine Emperor or any of that.”

Indeed that was precisely what Lathenil had been about to say.

“I'm no Emperor. I'm a juggler, Lathenil. I juggle provinces and functionaries, I use all my talent to keep them from hitting one another or falling to earth. Grandest, longest act in history, but the balls are dipping closer and closer to the ground. Maybe I won't drop them this time; it's seemed worse before. But _there will come the day that I will_. The Empire needs a true _leader_ , and even the worst of the claimants to the throne fits the bill better than I.” He gave another sorrowful half-smile. “Well, perhaps not, if we count the Council of the First Year...”

Ocato raised his head. “Sit _down_ , for pity's sake! Drink with me! No more words of consequence for the evening. I absolutely forbid it.” 

He sat. From Ocato's own hand, he took the crystal tumbler of Cyrodiilic brandy, the first drink he had not personally overseen in seven years. Through the night, they spoke of little memories and old refrains. They spoke of home.


	11. Indispensable

It rankled Lathenil to put a single credit to the Ayleids' name. Even Thalmor could never match the first mer of the Heartland for monstrosity. But then, the Imperial City was not inhabited by Ayleids, nor was it a confounding maze to him now. It was the heart of the Empire. Every span of its breadth was in evidence in the city's people. The warmth and conviviality of the common streets; the solemn grace of the Temple and the Arboretum; the jovial affectations of the Arcane scholars, so like his memories of Firsthold... here was a city worthy of those elegant, bone-white pillars.

It was not, never could be, Alinor. Alinor's wonder was wrought of the secrets in every shimmering stone; the splendor here was a panorama of public life. But perhaps – _perhaps_ – an Imperial might look on the crystal spires of Alinor under the violet sky of evening, call his city the fairer of the two, and not betray his heart in saying it.

He often had these thoughts when he exited the palace into Green Emperor Way. For the High Kings of Summerset, and above all the great Sages and Artists, were also entombed near the palace – encased in the blue-glass of the Hall of the Great, row on row, faces to look on though ages may die.

The graveyard of Tamriel's emperors... the first word that had leapt to his own mind was “haphazard.” And there was truth in that. Strong rumor had it that the statue of Uriel VII (a bold and vigorous figure, likely a pre-Simulacrum portrait) might not even stand above the Emperor's body: it was said that by the time the Council had got around to erecting a monument, they had forgotten the location of the burial plot.

And yet – there was a comfort here, that no one ever found when they went to look on the repose of Ayrenn herself. These graves were laid on the common way, to be seen by all the City on its routine business. The tombs and gravesites were circled pell-mell about the palace – there were so _many_ tombs, and most from the Third Era alone; the sheer _speed_ of human generations astounded him –  but each spoke to whom these Emperors had been.

He walked toward Uriel II's monument, easily the most absurdly comfortable of the lot. It was a beautiful work, but it never failed to mystify him that those who engraved his memory had elected to make his tomb a pavilion, ringed by a circular bench not unlike the sort he'd often sat eating softloaf on at the end of long strolls in the country along Sunhold. Had they expected _picnics_ , on such sacred--

A rather taut voice directly behind him began speaking. Lathenil whirled round and leapt back in one motion to face him.

The offender was a Dunmer with long, full dark hair and a neatly cropped beard. His only weapon was a shortbow, and that safely over his back. What he had said was: “Do I know you from Bravil, by chance?”

“V-vanishingly unlikely,” said Lathenil, discreetly withdrawing his hand from his vest, beginning to act precisely as though he was carrying on a natural conversation with a mer he had not mistaken for an assassin one breath before. “I was there perhaps half a day in my life, before the Seventh Champion personally threw me from the county.”

The Dunmer opened his mouth, closed it, and then shook his head in bewilderment. “And so she sent you to me,” he said finally. “Carrying silver arrows.”

Lathenil could not truthfully say he recognized this mer as the archer-captain of the encampment, but then, that gaunt, ragged figure would have filled out considerably if he'd survived the Red Year at all. “I suppose so. I take it they _were_ of use, then.”

“After three nights with the arrows,” said the Dunmer with a legionnaire's grin, “the wisps seemed to learn to stay away.”

Then his face sobered. “I – had to know if it might be you. I can't quite believe it actually is. You wouldn't be able to follow me to Market at the moment? A few cow's-meat pasties is the least I can give in recompense.”

The Dunmer of Morrowind were not a sociable lot, as a rule, and they certainly knew better than to thank the messenger boy over the great lady who sent him. This could very well be a trap. But this was the archer from the encampment outside Bravil – Artheyn, that was his name. If he were considering the ley lines that had spiderwebbed under the island of Vvardenfell, arced to the Ministry of Truth, and the force that had jarred it all loose...

“Feed Bag,” said Lathenil. A venue with plenty of witnesses, and noisy enough to cover any manner of odd conversation. “Good watercress, they say. Never mind the meat pasty.”

Artheyn nodded curtly. “That ought to do.”

Lathenil rapidly rehearsed, in his mind, everything that had led to his beliefs on Vvardenfell. Every proof was somewhat covered in the dust of his mind's attic – he had offered them to no one in three years; even Ocato might balk at the idea. Dawn Magic. The crashing waves around Summerset, the calm harbor of Anvil. The Argonian incitements. The way the crisis of Red Mountain drew the eye of the Empire from Summerset – but would that sound like justification enough? _was_ it justification enough?

Having proceeded silently to the Feed Bag but for their orders at the bar, the two of them sat down at a wall table; Lathenil ensured it was in full view of the door. There were scattered Altmer among the patrons, but none seemed interested in their passing.

A very thick silence lingered even after the food came. Lathenil tasted the watercress soup with the tip of his tongue, wary of a burning or a bitterness (there was none, but the meal, once accepted as nonlethal, turned out to fall far short of the Sunhold standard). Artheyn chose his fried crickets (a common concession to Morrowinders) in fits and starts, seeming quietly agitated. But at long last, the Dunmer opened his mouth.

“I must say, I'm surprised you're allowed on Green Emperor Way.”

“I--” This fit nowhere in Lathenil's anticipated lines of inquiry. “Who _isn't_ allowed on Green Emperor Way?”

Artheyn snapped another cricket into his mouth. “Seems a common enough thoroughfare, true. But you... I can't suppose the Potentate is too pleased with _you_.”

“I'm sorry?”

“No need to play dumb,” said Artheyn firmly. “I saw you come from the Palace. I expect your business there is the same as it was in Bravil five years ago – it was not a cause to be lightly thrown aside, was it?”

“No,” said Lathenil. “Not lightly, not gravely. Not for anything.” He had another swallow of the woefully bland watercress soup. He'd had far worse, in leaner times. “But Ocato. Why should he be displeased? He is a son of Summerset just as I am.”

It was Artheyn who stared now, with a hostility that made Lathenil shift his weight in his seat toward the balls of his feet. “What in Dagon's name is that supposed to mean?”

Lathenil was no longer certain that he and Artheyn had been having the same conversation.

“No. I called that meaningless? It means less than nothing. Only a mage of the Summerset Isles would be displeased to begin with!”

The last sentence hung suspended for a long moment, before it set into place.

“You... you cannot possibly believe that _Ocato_ was involved--”

“Can't I? He starved us of legionnaires, when the daedra were upon us!” (“Softer,” said Lathenil nervously; that last shout had turned a few heads.) “He is on record as dead set against Uriel's dispatch of the Nerevarine; he would rather the blight take us. Even now, with Vvardenfell buried and Mournhold fallen, he stokes the fires within Morrowind, that we may slaughter one another. _He is a Dawn Mage._ I cannot possibly believe-- what other possibility is there?”

A thousand possible responses whirled through Lathenil's mind. The Thalmor – but their likely motive would ring flat and false by comparison. The realities of troop distribution against the numberless hordes of the Deadlands – but Lathenil's information on the mainland situation was certainly more second-hand, less visceral, than Artheyn's would be. _Was_ Ocato a Dawn Mage? _Did_ he despise the Dunmer? He could not answer to either. There seemed no firm place to stand against the accusation..

No. There was one.

“Understand first that my aim is to deliver my homeland from a pack of usurpers – an effort in which justice for your people is, I believe, only a part. And so know that Ocato has heard not a word about Red Mountain from my lips – it did not credit me with you at first, and it has not with anyone else, either. Then, when you speak of his stoking fires among the Dunmer... do you refer to the massacre on House Hlaalu in Blacklight?”

Artheyn nodded, his face filled with gall.

“He had intended those staves as aid against the Black Marsh insurgents. When he found out what use they'd been put to, he was disconsolate. He missed a meeting with me on that account, and I found him in his chamber drowning himself in his cups. Artheyn-- I heard him that night, every wound of his bared and raw. He wishes only to secure the Empire – all the Empire – to find an Emperor to take his place, and to get himself a retirement where he will never have to look at another official document again. He had no motive to deceive me. I tell you the truth.”

Artheyn paused long before answering, presenting perhaps a mirror of Lathenil's own consideration. “No, there may be a very good motive. If he is an ally of these usurpers – the Thalmor; I do know the name –”

“--then he could realize their aims for Tamriel at a stroke,” snarled Lathenil. “He could simply abdicate, and let the Empire fend for itself.

Artheyn's mouth worked, as though trying to produce a word his mind could not. But he was silent from then to the end of the meal, and seemed to eat the rest of the crickets more out of duty than appetite. Lathenil spent the time wondering when, exactly, he had begun being calm enough to persuade so easily.

At last, they made their way to the door.

“Thank you for your answers,” he said at last, the bent in his posture echoing the desperate scarecrow he had once been. “No, I can only thank Azura that I should chance to see you on Green Emperor Way. Forgive me: I must take my leave now. I must go to Cheydinhal.”

He clasped Lathenil's hand.

A sudden surge through that hand knocked him to the ground. His next impression through the blue bolts still raking his skin: Artheyn's hand. Close by. Curiously limp. He rolled backward to his feet. A second lightning bolt missed him by inches; he took a precious glance toward the door, saw the gaping burn hole in the back of the Dunmer's shirt, the bowstring smoldering...

Run.

There was shouting around them. Perhaps the guard would respond in time, but the thing for him was to run. Dip, dodge, _run,_ never stop though his lungs might scream, until the Palace was in sight.

* * *

 

The Agent of North Nibenay would be able to make her excuses to Morgiah without even uttering a lie. She had volunteered to track Artheyn when the Black Queen learned of his desertion; Artheyn had intended to kill Ocato before Morgiah's time; she had killed the Dunmer herself. But there remained the problem of why North Nibenay's prime asset had gone so badly so quickly. The Imperial City Liaison walked the dusty floor of the Liaison attic garret, scanning the shelves for a likely-looking name.

Here.

_Dossier: Lathenil of Sunhold_

_Status: Active (Discredit and Kill), Moderate Priority, Emissary-General Approval_

_Description: Altmer of small stature, young adult, eyes markedly protuberant. Always observed wearing a leather vest over his garments._

Yes. This had to be the one.

_Background: Lathenil of Sunhold is the most vociferous political foe of the Aldmer outside Alinor, having been observed as far apart as Sentinel and Bruma in his efforts to rouse the Empire to new action against us. Fortunately, he is no able speaker, and there is no record that his efforts have met with any success; indeed, they may well serve to undermine similar enemy action in the future._

And yet he had met North Nibenay's asset on Green Emperor Way, and fled straightway to the Palace upon being attacked. There seemed to be dangerous flaws in this analysis.

_However, he is a purveyor of Septimate rhetoric such to spit in the face of the Aedra and the Circle alike;_

Ah. Must transmit that news to Colovia at once, then: their prime asset would need to be reined in while this obstacle remained.

_his knowledge of Dawn Magic is troubling (though believed to originate from a long-eliminated target);_

And there was the corruption of the Dunmer asset explained. North Nibenay's plan (or more accurately, Lord Arrinaro's) relied on a misunderstanding regarding Dawn Magic.

So, for that matter, did the task of the Liaisons. But he could stand well assured that when the fighting began, when the storm came, the fine points of abstract cosmology would loom large on no one's list of concerns. No matter how great this Lathenil's standing with the Empire may have become.

_and the deaths of an Imperial City Liaison, two Agents in North Nibenay, and one cooperative asset in Colovia lie at his feet. Elimination may therefore be deferred in favor of more pressing questions, but must be enacted should the opportunity present itself._

Very well. South Nibenay, then, would have permission for the next strike. There was too much possibility of failure in their gambit for the Liaison's liking; but then, if the chance were high, the potential strategic loss was vanishingly small. Colovia's plan would make the last resort, and only with Lathenil of Sunhold out of the way.

While he was thinking of South Nibenay and Colovia, it was high time the Liaisons looked into the Prison District. to determine adjustments to the first storm radius. The time of the storm might not, after all, be nigh, but to act as though it were not was foolishness to the degree of reeducation.

“I take it you've got the harbor to yourself,” said Maelona the guardswoman cheerfully, soon as Mirabelle opened the door. Mirabelle wasn't remotely fooled by her demeanor or by her civilian clothing. She'd picked precisely the right time to bother her, after waking and before opening the door, and, though she'd kept mainly to her own affairs of late, the _Flowing Bowl_ was very likely to be official guard business.

“Two days now,” she said, having no good reason not to comply with this inquiry. “Saw Maenlorn at Lelles'. It must have been just before they left; he was buying half a pack's worth of dried rations. He seemed... well, he's been distracted for a while now, but he seemed particularly distracted then. Said he intended to go to Windhelm, to see a man called Beorn or something of the sort. Windhelm, of all places! Those two have been at that inn longer than I've been alive.”

Maelona nodded, seemingly in assent to some calculation of her own. “While I'm standing here, I've been meaning to ask you: do you know of a ship called the _Falconbranch_?”

“Last docked in Anvil in spring 432,” she said. “Shipwrecked off Hammerfell in the First Year.”

The smile left Maelona's eyes at once. “That's a good memory you have.”

“Well, you're not the first to ask,” said Mirabelle. _Now_ was the time for cautious tiptoeing; she had, after all, been quite explicity sworn to secrecy. “The other fellow, he's an on-and-off guest of mine; he's not here now, but when he is, he usually stays for a while. He could likely tell you things more pertinent to your question – he's very cagey, mind you, so he may not wish to. But I know this much: it's not a matter within Anvil's jurisdiction.”

“Somehow,” said Maelona, “I'm unsurprised.”

  

* * *

 

Lathenil was, of course, likely as not to have been the target of the attack himself. But suppose he weren't. Some pieces of their discussion were still stubborn to fall into place – why the Thalmor might have wanted the Dunmer dead; what his connection to Morgiah, or elsewhere in Cheydinhal, may have been – but, thinking on what Artheyn might have meant to discuss, Lathenil wondered if this meeting in the public-house might not have been the most significant deed he had yet done for his homeland.

In any case, the threat to his own life was unmistakable, and the Potentate's trust in him inviolate, and so he was allowed access to the same passage from the Palace that Ocato had evidently used to find him in the Waterfront. (This, Ocato suspected, had been betrayed to the Mythic Dawn, but the traitor was dead, and its entrance and final issue had been altered since.)

By First Seed, Ocato said he had no need for further information on the Summerset situation (barring, of course, a critical word from Lathenil's allies.)

Lathenil started at that. Not a little disappointment was laced in with the surprise; it had been so _good_ to speak of Summerset to an ear that would listen.

Ocato nodded briskly from behind his great desk. “The crucial thing now, I believe, is to take it up with certain sympathetic councillors and advisors from other provinces. I would start with Valenwood, and save Morrowind for last, if I were you.” (The last assassination attempt had forced Lathenil to speak of Red Mountain. Ocato had not discounted the possibility out of hand, either – but even he had to concede that it did not precisely _sound_ credible.)

“Can – can Morrowind _spare_ councillors for this, then?”

Ocato smiled with grim satisfaction. “By tomorrow, I think they will find they must. You see, Black Marsh has not been able to prevent its people making continued strikes against Morrowind. They have forfeited all right to remain in the Empire.”

“You...” Lathenil ran a hand across the corners of his mouth. “You don't believe this would set a precedent for Summerset to do likewise?”

“Precedents matter only insofar as the Inner Council gives a fig about them, and they know as well as I do that the stated reason doesn't scratch the surface where Black Marsh is concerned.” Ocato began ticking off points on his fingers. “Malarial place – a legionnaires' boneyard. The Saxhleel desire nothing better than to be left to their own resources. What's more, they truly don't _need_ the Empire. Ask them how they fared against the daedra, if you doubt it. And with the Argonians entirely out of the Empire's hands, I daresay there will be no more diplomatic wrangling needed for Morrowind to hold to the Empire and keep King Helseth's abolition policy in force – it will become the only course that makes any sense at all.”

“One less ball in the juggling act,” said Lathenil.

“Precisely that.” Ocato's nose wrinkled on hearing a reference to that particular conversation, but the answer was sincere enough.

“And now,” said Lathenil, “and now it's _time_.”

The monstrous lie, the theft of his city before the body was cold, the murder of the greatest Sage alive – the perversion of the councils, his last sister in flight, the Queen and Prince half prisoners in their own palace – the crashing waves and the wasting fires – no more. No more.

“I warn you,” said Ocato: “it is entirely likely that these mysterious allies of yours cannot remain secret by the end of this meeting. The nature of your information indicates them too valuable to be thus secluded.”

Before Lathenil knew quite what he was doing, he nodded. Eagerly. The end was in sight. Such a disclosure would hasten it.

A stray thought sobered him, made it so he could breathe properly again. “Then – councillors and advisors – with the Summerset council in such disarray – am I to be the only representative for Summerset?”

“Not entirely,” said Ocato, with a certain irony to his tone. “There remains the councillor for Artaeum.”

“You mean to say... the Psijic Order? I'd thought they never involved themselves in matters political. And – if you know this councillor to take our side – how is it that you never had a word from him?”

“Ah.” Ocato smiled wryly. “That would be because he has spent most of the past decade in meditative solitude. You would think he would have tired of it, but even now, he'll announce he must depart and meditate if you try to have more than a quarter-hour for anything of importance.”

“So – the Psijic Order _does_ stand against the Thalmor!” This almost certainly meant that Red Mountain had, indeed, been a Thalmor act. It certainly could not be a matter of less gravity than that.

“Not strictly Psijic, no. Nu-Hatta has the right power and philosophy for the Psijic Order, but there are certain flaws in his temperament that made him unfit nonetheless. He took a lower calling on the island instead – pertaining to the cryptic histories left by the local ancestor moths, if memory serves. And even then he was ousted in the end, for imprudent use of... well, if I tell you what he imprudently used, you'd ask for follow-up and we'd be discussing esoteric cosmology for a sleepless week. Which would, at least, give you fair preparation for meeting him.”

While it was good to know that the stories of rash mystics going off to Artaeum and never being heard of again might not end as unhappily as generally supposed (even for a race as short-lived as the Argonians!), Lathenil had to wonder what help this fellow would be at council. “Er... are our manners of speaking meant to balance one another out?”

“Not a chance. It took me years to understand his circumlocutions, and now that I do understand them, it's clear he could sensibly speak in no other way. But in that capacity, Nu-Hatta has already proven himself at least as indispensable to the Summerset issue as you have been. Thanks to the Oblivion Crisis, we do retain him as a provincial councillor – which ought at least keep the Inner Council happy. And who knows? After all this meditation, he might be able to point out who in the room would actually listen to you.”

Ocato smiled, letting Lathenil in on the joke of the matter.

“Of course, when you asked if you were the sole representative for Summerset, you were thinking of _practical_ representation, not legalisms or wild plunges into Artaean mysteries. That,” he said, “would be where I come in.”

 

* * *

 

_Colovian Agency Record, 10 Second Seed, 4E10_

_The Agency stands, in the main, ready to depart. First Agent Serranur, however, has gone to follow some lead at the Wayshrine of Arkay, the nature of which he did not disclose. He has been duly warned of the danger of arriving at port behind the black horse, and indicated his willingness to accept the risks entailed – or, more precisely, his poor confidence in South Nibenay's ability to present such a risk. Should he not return by the critical hour, Alinor is advised to submit all appropriate condolences._

 

* * *

 

It was a motley procession that filed into the Palace. First, the Potentate and his guard, who wore no livery but only the gear that best suited them. Behind them, perhaps a third wore the robes of the full Council; most, like Lathenil, simply wore the most formal robes they had; a few – priests and the like – did not even go to that stretch. The one Argonian in attendance (since the relinquishment of Black Marsh) was one of these, in a brown robe not far removed from sackcloth, and he came not from Green Emperor Way but from the stair above. Lathenil made his way to his side at once.

“Nu-Hatta,” he said, bowing his head with hands crossed over his chest: the prescribed ritual for greeting a Psijic, or one of the Wise.

“ _Sst!_ ” The Argonian thrust out a gnarled, faded claw to stop any further conversation. He stood stock-still, closed his eyes, slowly raised his arms. Then he let them fall, his expression troubled.

“What is it?” Lathenil whispered.

Nu-Hatta shook his head. “No heart here beats against the Mantic Order. This is... most unconsonant...”

Lathenil had not the faintest idea what the Mantic Order could be. Nothing to do with the Thalmor, certainly – his own heart would easily give that the lie. But if they had nothing to do with the Thalmor, why would Nu-Hatta conduct some sort of Psijic ritual for their sake in the first place? He thought he began to understand why Ocato had so little patience for the councilor.

But best to try. “What, precisely, is this Mantic--”

“I am instructed not to speak overmuch,” said Nu-Hatta. “Which happens to be most advisable at this juncture of temporality. Let us keep to our receptive mortal faculties, and keep them closely.”

* * *

 

All in all, the situation _was_ visibly improving. Had been since they gave up Black Marsh. Admittedly, this had been all of two weeks ago; it would take at least six months of good fortune before he could hope to parlay the matter into a resignation; but Corran would take his optimism where he could. The presence of Dela in the retinue had a way of encouraging him to reach.

He shook his head at the glasses of wine already laid out on the great Council table, marking every seat Ocato had planned for. (The guards, as always, did not _have_ seats.) Their contents would, no doubt, be Tamika's Exclusive. It was all very well to eschew the Alto once in a while, but to imitate it so closely struck him as a wrong-footed approach to the shortage. Not that it was his lookout, but even so...

His eyes dutifully scanned the periphery. Idly he wondered if he could manage to spot a threat before the weapon was drawn. Not that this was a situation he'd yet had to deal with or ever was likely to – he had needed to act as a true bodyguard only twice, and both incidents had involved perpetrators barely sane enough to charge straight – but he amused himself, while following Ocato in lockstep toward the seat facing the door. There was the table and the rotunda level to make sure of, as always. And – why not – better check the special council for signs of Dark Brotherhood skulduggery. There were a few broad, dagged sleeves. No irregularities in the movement of them, though, nor did any vest hang as heavily as the one worn by “Special Council Advisor” Lathenil in all places but this chamber. But the game of keen-eyed vigilance was quickly exhausted, and from what Corran had caught about this to-do, there must be hours to go.

Ocato, never having had the gift to make a room go silent with a simple raise of his hand, took his gavel and struck the hollow point under his place at the Council table.

“This Special Council is convened for the simple reason that it now _can_ be convened. This is the first opportunity, since the tragedy of Red Mountain, to settle the small question of post-Crisis reunificiation.”

Corran already had a yawn tugging at the edges of his mouth, and he wasn't even sitting like most. He minutely shrugged his shoulder just to be sure his flask was still weighing it down.

“You will have noticed, of course, that those assembled here do not make anything like a full council, and that fully half of you are not on the Elder Council at all. What every man, mer and beast assembled here does have in common is this: you are interested in the welfare both of your province, and of the Empire, and know of resources to further both goods at once. The first two are wanting enough in the greater Council, but the rigors of a Council post all but put the last out of the question. Yours, in short, is a task that may be undertaken by no other.

“As such, we are to stay put until concrete plans to re-knit our fraying Empire have begun to emerge. A special delegate of each province shall state the situation at hand, in all details good and ill. The order shall be clockwise from my left.”

Well, then. Corran was just about hovering over that Llethri woman's right shoulder, and Dela was sharing shoulders with Nu-Blatha and Laughable. So the seating had been strategic. Morrowind was given the first word, and Summerset the last. Skyrim was naturally lost in the middle, its usual retinue only missing Erek Free-Winter, and only because the Count-Consort of Bruma here fell afoul of conflict-of-interest regulations. Corran fancied that, if not for their generosity to the Dunmer in Windhelm, there need not have been a detachment from Skyrim at all.

It occurred to him that he recognized none of Hammerfell's attendants. But he thought it safe to assume they were all three Lhotunic. Crowns were impossible to please, and as such, Forebears were impolitic to bring to this conference.

Always good to have _something_ to think about.

“...representatives of the other provinces. I, of course, serve to represent Cyrodiil. I strongly suggest that at least one of each be consulted. If you seek refreshment –” (Ocato gestured to the wine glass before him –) “this will be it. The kitchens have been instructed to give nothing but clear water and waycakes from here on. As I say, we do not leave until feasible plans have been formed.”

He risked a theatrical silent groan in Dela's direction. She didn't seem to be looking.

Ocato raised his glass; the rest more or less followed suit. Corran, eyeing Ocato to make sure he wasn't watching, opened his flask. He was glad of the warning that he would really need to conserve the stuff today. And at least his really _was_ Alto; if Gellius couldn't make sure of that, no one could.

“In Cyrodiil,” Ocato said, “we have come to say these words with about as much feeling as any other evening farewell. But here, we commit ourselves to the real purpose, so let the words have all the weight they deserve:

“Long live the Empire.”

A small swallow. It did not taste quite right, Corran thought vaguely, but before any other thought could form, the red mist descended over his eyes and the greatsword was in his hands--

* * *

 

In the decades to come, the moment would be seared into Lathenil's mind. The rage twisted into the guardsman's features by the poison – Ocato's wordless half-shout, cut short within the breath as the longsword hewed him between the shoulder and the neck, the fall of the wine glass against the Council table, the slackness of his mouth when he slid from the sword's edge to the ground.

Lathenil's own wine glass, an inch from his lips.

Somehow – he ceased to remember so clearly at this point – Nu-Hatta was already in the fray, and there were screams from that pretty Breton woman that Corran was to be taken alive, and Nu-Hatta was agreeing, which was good policy, but this was not the time for it, Ocato needed seeing to...

Shouts echoed from every corner, now, panicked and uncertain.

_What's happened--_

_Did that guardsman--_

_Run! Get the Watch--_

_\--convene the Inner Council--_

_My flower of the frost was down there, do you understand me? With the daedra. They_ had _her--_

Lathenil shook the last phrase out of his head, knowing it to belong to another day than this. He found both his knees had somehow met the floor. They were painful, and warm, and damp, and he was inches from his Potentate, saw the glassy eyes and the way his lips drew back over his teeth, the shoulder hacked apart as a pursuing dremora would have done it, and he knew plain death when he saw it. The big Imperial stood over them, frozen in his grimace of rage, still wielding the sword, unmoved since he had made the fatal blow. The two guardswomen were on either side of him, gripping his arms. This did not register. It was mere nightmare stuff.

He clasped Ocato's hand, no cooler than his own, but looser than Ocato's ever could have been in life. Justice would have him enshrined in the Hall of the Great besides the High Kings and Queens of Alinor. But then justice would have seen Summerset restored this very evening. Justice would never be done: the Thalmor had ensured it. The Thalmor had--

He fell, then, over Ocato's breast, the blood kissing his forehead. A roaring had begun somewhere above his head. There were battle-screams, too, somehow nearer than the roar, but they did not matter.

* * *

 

He tore himself free at last from the paralysis. He leapt back from the grasp of the two captors, and the enemy bore down on him again; he slashed one across the chest, and she fell back, leaving--

The red mist lifted. Corran remembered himself. He saw it was Dela who staggered back, and he who had cut her. Both his hands lost all feeling, and there was a clatter on the ground where the greatsword fell.

“Dela,” he said dully, as somehow his right arm bent itself tightly behind his back while pressure fell on the right shoulder. “I didn't mean – are you badly hurt?”

She propped her body up on her right arm, which did not seem to be trembling from physical pain. “What have you done, Corran, oh by Talos _what have you done_...”

He did not comprehend, at first. But after a moment of sifting through those rage-hued memories, he knew. “I was poisoned,” he said, haltingly, knowing it was important. “My flask.”

“Who?” The rough voice of Rosenlai, one of the Altmer guards, by his right ear. “Who poisoned your flask? _What flask?_ ”

He thought about it. The detachment of shock likely worked in his favor. He had told no one anything of importance. But who knew he would be at Council today? And who knew he would drink from the flask? There was only one answer.

“Gellius. Gellius Terentius. It has to be.” And it occurred to him that certain gestures he made, while relating anecdotes harmless in themselves, might have shown that, when on duty, he stood directly to Ocato's left.

“ _Terentius..._ ” Dela began to laugh bitterly, then clutched her chest, wincing. “I suppose he told you Ocato wouldn't like to hear you were drinking on the docks with Count Terentius' son...”

Actually, Corran had reasoned that out for himself. It was only that he hadn't seen any harm in the secret. It wouldn't help to say so, he knew. It began to dawn on him that he had very likely done a thing Dela could never forgive.

He made himself look at the Potentate's body, managing only flinching glances, but... “Hoy,” he said feebly. “Summerset's advisor is interfering... interfering with the crime scene. I did it, you know. I did it, don't let him spoil the... the evidence.”

A shaking was inside him, creeping from his lungs to his very skin. He found it difficult to breathe. He was not quite certain he wished to.

* * *

 

“Step away,” said the voice of the Altmer guardswoman, barely audible under the rising roar of a fallen Tower.

“I won't,” said Lathenil tonelessly, raising his head, still clasping Ocato's hand in both of his. “Hear the Firsthold quarter – they call for him. I must stay with him. I will not fly like a coward. I stand and fight.”

“Stand and fight – whom?” asked the Dunmer woman, the councilor of House Redoran. “The Inner Council? An admirable sentiment, but I can't imagine it will work.”

The Breton guardswoman, who had somehow got injured and was crumpled on the ground, laughed long and feebly. “Ha. I expect that's _exactly_ what he'd say...”

The guardsman, the unwitting assassin, began to rock back and forth.

Lathenil blinked blearily; the roar was wavering. “The daedra – no, the Thalmor – I won't run. I won't run.” He decided he had better stand.

Nu-Hatta stepped forward. “My act-patterns succumb to the physical, I am afraid, and already Aurbis begins to creak on that account. But the shortfall doubles the task-load, and in furtherance of the first of these, two facts must be made known to you, and at once.” Words on words, washing over Lathenil without leaving the slightest impression. “First, that in the last throes of the formation of the world were traced by the Tharnatos the analogue of a compass, and that the outline is roughly approximated in Lake Rumare, and that--”

“I take it we must be in haste,” said the councillor of House Redoran dryly.

The Argonian swallowed. “Come with me,” he said feebly, “if you want to live.”

“The Thalmor will come for me, you mean, come to the tower. Yes, it is plain--” he gasped suddenly, hand to his bloodstained forehead-- “it is plain that they know of my presence... let them come...” He reached under his vest, which flapped uselessly. “No, I forget. I must get to the antechamber. I must have Lawlike.”

“Lawlike,” said Nu-Hatta softly.

“My sword. A sword of the Thalmor before then, when they first sought my life.” He felt a broken grin spreading across his face, and that sound of the gale in the forest was rising to its fateful crescendo. “Lawlike. You see? So I can't run again.”

Nu-Hatta closed his eyes briefly, Lathenil imagined pityingly, but he then turned to lead the way to the antechamber, and his next words were sharp and clear. “You are certain, then, that Thalmor are the immediate architects of this. Expostulate.”

Symposium speech. An old and formal mode, if perhaps an overly restrictive one, typically used for matters of philosophy, or theology, or aesthetics. He'd taken part in that in the Pavilion of Sunhold, yearned for more like it in the Academy of Firsthold, before the daedra, before... no, no digressions. In the mode the Argonian had chosen, only the pith of the matter was permitted.

“Overarching all,” he said shakily, following in step, “the question of means and motive. There are many whose hearts bear malice toward –”

The name _Ocato_ stopped his throat.

“Many who may bear the will to have... done this. But for all but the Thalmor, such a will precludes the intellectual means to have carried it out. Only the Thalmor stand to benefit; all others stand to cut off the limb they rest upon.” A terrible cliché at the symposium, but he had a strangely desperate sense that it was best not to spend any more time on the point. “The Terentii, who stand particularly accused, are hardly famed for their intellect; even if they were the first actors, there was a keener mind laying the way to this guard's flask.”

Lawlike hung on the weapons rack under the Dragon banner, among an array of staves and travel-knives which struck him vaguely as a sparse one. He sheathed her reflexively while he finished the expostulation.

“Strong anecdotal support: Artheyn Othril. Another catspaw, I must now believe. He took me aside, knowing me to frequent the Palace, and I must now believe he thought me able to grant him a means to... to grant him the same privilege of confidence that our guard gave to Gellius Terentius. My words, I have no doubt, persuaded him of his folly, and the moment he said words to that effect, he was killed by an unseen magical assailant.”

Nu-Hatta nodded sententiously. Thus he showed that he deemed the argument incomplete. But before Lathenil could get too far lost, another example leapt to his mind, leapt from what seemed a great well of time.

“A more speculative support: Narinelle of the Galepoint. High Priestess of Auri-El for almost a century; now almost certainly dead under the Provision of the Thalmor. I did not see this before. It befell her so _early_ , before even Rynandor-- no. Digression conceded. Ah – she, too, became their victim in falling to indiscriminate blows after drink. She famously abstained from the study of combat altogether, and so harmed no one. Why, then, would she begin a brawl, a thing she had not done since a small girl, in her third century? And so...”

Lathenil recognized his error too late; it was one he had always fallen into. That was not the place for a rhetorical question. Rhetorical questions, in the symposial form, were to be used to cap off a complete syllogistic seal. All other occasions invited a piercing counterstrike.

But then, he realized, there had been too many errors to count. Most damningly, he had not even framed the context of the events to begin with! The symposia in the Pavilion had taken common background for granted, it was true, but he knew perfectly well that Nu-Hatta had taken to seclusion on the mainland these past ten years. Certainly, he did not know the Argonian's role in this effort... no, what _would_ have been his role... but wait--

“We need to reorganize the Special Council,” said Lathenil. Why had he been standing here refining debate form?

“You return to a rudiment-level clarity, then,” said Nu-Hatta gently.

Lathenil understood, now. He had come so, so very close to slipping away, as he had done beneath the ruin of Crystal-Like-law. Concentrated reason had been the antidote.

“It is not, of course, possible to reconvene,” Nu-Hatta went on. “They are almost all dispersed, and political considerations made Potentate Ocato the sole hub of the wheel, common metaphorical sense. But take my left hand. The Watch will seek to question you as a witness. This must not happen.”

Yes. Captivity. The Thalmor would have to be fools not to claim him then, all saving variables removed. They were never fools. If there had been any doubt of that, it had been removed today.

Lathenil extended his hand, but halted midway. “What do you intend?”

“It is the practice of picking out beneath our feet the mesh-work which echoes the pierces in the vault, though of course the initial factor is not a standing-stone but the vestigial shell of the Ayleid...” Nu-Hatta sighed and shook his head. “You may regard it as a kind of way-magic.”

Way-magic, as Lathenil understood it, was a lost art of the Dunmer that transported the subject, leaving the caster behind. “Then you – you remain for questioning? For the Thalmor to find you?”

“I remain to complete my other task; there will be time to arrange. All else is irrelevant. But your place is not here.”

His place? Yes. Yes, his place, under the soft, clear sky. The haunting sweet song, and the pleasant breath of salt in the air, and the libraries that were palaces seeming grown from the earth, and this blood clinging to his forehead and his knees would return to that fair soil even as he did.

He seized the Argonian's hand.

Nu-Hatta paused for a moment, a tension hanging in the air. “Your birth was under the sign of the Lady. But it must serve.”

Lathenil was enveloped by a cold white light, and the next he found himself seated on a plain with his back to a large stone. The air smelled just as he'd dreamed. The grasses... pale and hardy, as they were in Colovia. The sky – harsh blue and far away.

He turned, only to see the gates of Anvil in the distance.

And he understood. The Augur-Stone of the Lady that stood on the western cliffs had been destroyed long ago. No trade vessel would carry him across the Strait, no Potentate could make an escort, and even the arts of Artaeum could not now draw him home.

A scream thrust itself from his lungs, and another. There were footsteps rushing toward him, he knew, but he could not make himself stop to look.

Nu-Hatta set off directly toward the Market District, with Prison District before it. Whether he was made a witness did not matter: his words were never set to the common experiential mode of terrestrial discourse. Whether he was held did not matter either: his mere flesh was failing, far beyond his estimation. His failure of intervention in this great disruption in the Wheel had been a matter not of the sight, but of mortal reflex, and his further intervention would be starkly limited by mortality no matter where he was.

It was, however, essential to the continuance of the Aurbis that he first obtain a good dress and shoes, a comb, perfumed soap, and two tourists' papers.

* * *

 

_18 Second Seed, 4E10_

_Ocato of Firsthold is dead._

_It happened before my eyes, ~~his life's blood is upon me even now, I still see his shoulder~~_

_~~Of the circumstances of my dep~~ _

_I have put as much distance as I can between myself and the Imperial City. It is best that I do not see the funeral procession. The Thalmor need not look for me by description, they need not even know me for an Altmer. If they are to claim my life to add to his, they need only look through the sea of formal solemnity and find the one face bearing genuine grief._

_It is a monstrous injustice. To the end, Tamriel never forgave him that he was not Martin Septim. And indeed it would take a fatuity beyond hope to argue otherwise. Ocato managed Tamriel as a cautious merchant would; to lead, to inspire, was not in his makeup. But if we have felt keenly that absence, how much more would Martin's reign suffer without Ocato to implement his towering vision!_

_How much more will Summerset suffer, that he will never walk in Firsthold again._

_He never wanted to be Potentate. He never wanted a seat on the Elder Council, for that matter. Many will say otherwise, but they did not know him as I did. He did his scrupulous best at work he detested, only to find to his horror that it made him indispensable._

_And so he is dispensed with, his own bodyguard turned to a murder weapon by Thalmor poisons. That darkness take Summerset, her brightest fires are extinguished._

_And that darkness is come. The stroke that took his life felled also my homeland. Only the formalities remain._

_No. I have had such notions before – when I learned of Sage Rynandor's death, when_

_But I must not slip away. I must keep my mind to its highest functions._

_Summerset has taken a grievous blow. Other wounds still hamper her. Whether this one proves mortal remains to be seen. The Kings and Queens remain in the old way, and the Thalmor do not dare to touch them openly. There is Lillandril. There is the cabal. Their hope of victory is dimmed, without an Empire to support them, but_

_See how close I come now to drooling madness. Even a bad historian makes sure to address both End and Means. Even a simpleton considers his own peril when his greatest ~~frien~~ ally is murdered before his eyes. I have done neither._

_There are few indeed who gave Ocato his due while he lived. But I was mistaken: many will grieve at the procession. They may not heed my warnings, but they are not fools outright. They have no succession, no regency, and they must know what awaits them._

_What awaits me as well. It is a dim and hazy vision, and Ocato's blood is spilled out on the Council chamber floor, and the fall of Crystal-Like-Law echoes drumming within me, but I must see it. I must not slip away._

* * *

 

There never was a funeral for Firsthold's greatest son. There was not even a burial. The last agreement the Elder Council of the Septimate Empire ever made, before Council and Empire were shattered together, was to postpone it.

Long before that decision was made, Corran of Pell's Gate had already broken free from his captors on the prison bridge, to drown himself in Lake Rumare.


	12. The Innkeep's Memento

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This is the oldest portion of the story. As such, it's the seed crystal for much of what came before and after, and as such, it involves me getting inadvertently locked into focusing on two minor characters with severely similar names and there is now nothing I can do about it.
> 
> The fact that Corran and Dela appear to switch races in the middle of chapter ten, though, is highly remediable, and I have now acted accordingly. D'oh.

_2 First Seed, 4E10_

The fine-robed Altmer took one swallow of the mutton before shaking his head in amazement. “I must pay my compliments to the cook.”

Maenlorn beamed. So even Summerset patricians thought so, did they? “That would be my brother, Caenlorn. He has a black motive for it, mind you: as boys we got ourselves stranded in the West Jungle, with a beetle's bite leaving him too ill to stand, and so I fed the both of us on that very spot for the next week. He's _still_ revenging me that roast sloth.”

The Altmer smiled. “Valenwood born. It shows, too, in that natural courtesy of yours. Real Colovians seem to find it a needless burden at the best of times, and that's not to speak of what happens when they're in spitting distance of the seashore. And the Nibenean idea of courtesy... of course, don't ask Bjorn Stone-Fist. He seems oath-bound to see yours and theirs the wrong way round.”

“And it's such a pleasant day, too. I wish you wouldn't sully it with such invocations.”

Bjorn Stone-Fist of Windhelm had made it a personal mission to pin every crime of the Third Era – and now the Fourth, such as it was – on what he called the “fair elves.” As near as Maenlorn could decide, it was Mankar Camoran who'd turned Stone-Fist's head; the man had actually said that his prejudices might prevent another Oblivion Crisis, seemingly unaware that another Oblivion Crisis was good and prevented no matter _what_ he did. But that was no cause for pity. There were a good many mortals who'd emerged from the Crisis with their sanity less than intact, but only one chose to express his delusions by throwing half the mer in his city to the icy winds.

The Altmer nodded with a wry smile. “Yes, the name does have that effect, doesn't it? Bloody-handed cretin, practically on his knees before Ysgramor... no, bad illustration: _every_ Nord has that problem. But then again, the Imperials have Alessia, and the Redguards have Frandar Hunding, and of course there's Talos...” He frowned. “It does make one wonder from time to time.”

“Wonder,” Maenlorn echoed.

“If there isn't something the humans really _like_ about a good spot of elf-killing.”

“There isn't,” came a flat voice from near the stairwell. It turned out to be Caenlorn, in an attitude so far removed from his usual cheerful-servant aspect that his own twin brother had needed to turn his head to see who it was.

“Ah,” said Maenlorn hastily, “here's that cook you'd wished to compliment!”

“Indeed,” said the rich Altmer. “I have never had mutton so tender. But say on.”

Caenlorn shrugged, the casual motion of his arms clashing with the closed-up expression on his face. “Can't speak for Skyrim. The Ysgramor business... well, they always like their warriors – but it's Redguards and Imperials here, mostly, and I will tell you that there are at least three little girls named Alessia – merish all – in this county alone. _And_ an Altmer boy named Pelinal. This is Anvil, you know.” The guest raised his brow as though to ask a question, but if Caenlorn noticed, he didn't show it. “And the people who've thought of killing us – angry drunks of all nine stripes, and deep in their cups as they were, not one has mentioned _elves_ as a reason. Hope that satisfies you?”

It was all put civilly enough, if you didn't know Caenlorn well. Maenlorn, however, could practically feel a cold draft coming from the stairwell.

“You are young,” said the rich patron. “One cannot expect you to remember the days of Tiber Septim, never mind the rest of the vaunted human heroes. Nor, indeed, do I. But the fact remains: each did kill the Aldmer, wholesale, and it is for that which each is venerated. If our centuries are for any purpose – ah, Caenlorn – let it be to preserve such memory.”

Caenlorn smiled without an ounce of sincerity. “For my part, I'd rather run the inn.”

“And on that,” put in Maenlorn with a note on which he could bustle off, “we all can agree.” Of course the _Flowing Bowl_ 's livelihood stood or fell on the human trade, but it wasn't as though a manicured gentleman like this patron would know enough to quibble.

After the meal, the patron submitted an apology for causing the stir; indeed, his regrets seemed deep, and he had no thought of canceling or haggling his reservation. Nonetheless, no sooner had Maenlorn seen him to his room than he went to the kitchens for Caenlorn.

“Ah!” Caenlorn moved to the personal larder. “Good news for us – bad day for cheese. This wheel is hardening just enough that--”

“What can you have been thinking?”

“Sorry? Oh, the Altmer with the Summerset accent, no doubt. Stormed out, has he?” Though the brothers had been eating a strict diet of stale leavings for most of a month, he sounded perfectly unconcerned at the idea of losing the night's best source of coin.

“No,” said Maenlorn. “You – you can't have been trying for that?”

Caenlorn grimaced over the cutting board. “Well. I like to be left alone and to business as much as anyone. But I won't let that make a coward of me.”

“Seems a bit overblown. Not that he wasn't _wrong_ , but...”

“It's a popular kind of wrong.” He scored the wood under the next slice of cheese. “Bastard was talking the way those Summerset delegations talk when they imagine _no one_ is around, just me behind the thin kitchen door. Only softened. Trying to get you on board with it.” Breadcrumbs flew like sawdust. “If he were a diplomat too, it'd be a losing proposition to start anything. But as it is, all we had to lose was his custom – and we can live without that." 

He would find by dawn that Caenlorn spoke only half right. He had been right concerning the patron's character; he had been wrong indeed about how much they had to lose.

 

* * *

 

_22 Second Seed, 4E10_

“There's the one,” said Mirabelle quietly, indicating Lathenil boiling his well-water at the cookfire. The elf was considerably settled since his first evening, when he'd had to go into the cellar so as not to disturb the other guests with his howling and thrashing, but he was still in a very bad way; he didn't so much as glance in their direction, which was like to mean he had no idea he was being identified. And that despite the fact that Mirabelle had warned him to expect a human visitor.

Maelona the guardswoman nodded, stonily, and stepped forward. “Lathenil. I've been meaning to see you for a fortnight now. The Fighters' Guild is already on the path, but there is one thing they cannot know...”

“The path where?” said Lathenil dully. He had noticed, then. He simply couldn't be bothered to move in response.

“The path to Windhelm. Their man should be there within the day.”

“A fighter? All the way to Windhelm?” His laugh was a weak, limping thing. “You're not likely to see him again, then.”

“Oh? And why might that be?” It looked very much as though Maelona had her own ideas on that; her whole body was like a bow strung too tight to draw.

“It'd be too late,” he said simply, drawing the kettle from the fire. “Stay to Anvil, protect yourself – that's all you can do.” He'd made plenty of remarks like that to Mirabelle as well; they might have made perfect sense, if they had begun this morning and not three days before.

“Against Windhelm, you mean,” said Maelona.

 _Now_ Lathenil showed signs of agitation. “The _Black Horse Courier_ has come,” he snarled. “You know perfectly well what I mean.”

“Haven't seen it,” said Maelona _,_ with a side glance Mirabelle's way. “What is he talking about?”

“Ocato is dead, Maelona,” she said.

“ _Potentate_ Ocato?”

Mirabelle gestured for her to hush, lest she wake the luscious-but-cantankerous longshoreman upstairs. “Killed by one of his own guard, four days ago – they're implicating House Terentius for the plot.”

“They'll be executed shortly, of course,” said Lathenil, somehow as though he didn't deem that a _good_ thing.

“So,” said Mirabelle, “I think he's fearing the worst.”

“The worst – what, Second Era come again? No – no, the Elder Council knows better than to repeat _that_.”

Lathenil slumpingly sat at the table beside his cup of hot water. “Too much to hope. Powerful people are too powerful to care about... no, to _look after_... no, that's still not quite--” He laid his brow in his palm, eyes wide as though a sudden pain had coursed through him.

“I'm asking about Windhelm,” said Maelona sharply. “Is there any connection between Windhelm and a ship called the _Falconbranch_?”

“The _Falconbranch._ ” Lathenil's eyes were wide, his hand fallen to the table, his back suddenly straightened. Mirabelle wasn't sure what he might be thinking; so far as she knew, the _Falconbranch_ was an entirely settled matter; but there was no denying the new vigor in his aspect. “It wouldn't make it to Windhelm – not a chance, even before the Sea of Ghosts – why do you ask about Windhelm?”

“I'm looking for Maenlorn. That Bosmer who kept the Flowing Bowl. He left rather abruptly toward Windhelm, in search of a man named – Beorn, wasn't it, Mirabelle?”

“I think so,” she said. “One of those very manly old-blood Nord surnames.” (Maelona's face told her she very much wished this detail had come up before she'd consulted the Fighters' Guild.)

Lathenil swallowed. “It wouldn't be – Stone-Fist, would it?”

“That's it! Beorn Stone-Fist.”

Lathenil stood in a flash. “Gone to Bjorn Stone-Fist... knows the _Falconbranch_... Aedra speed me, I _must_ find him--”

“One moment!” cried Maelona. “What _is_ the _Falconbranch_?”

“I thought it had beached on Fort Constant, a decade ago.” He was now stuffing Mirabelle's stale bread pell-mell into his pack. “But few things, guardswoman, would drive an Aldmer into the arms of Bjorn Stone-Fist – madness for him to do that, it was madness that drove him – and if he knows the _Falconbranch_...”

“And what would that mean?”

“You won't listen. These ten years, only one ever _has_ listened, and...” He turned abruptly toward the wall, and his next words had something of a croak in them. “And... you wouldn't understand half so well. Time is of the essence – _Stone-Fist_ – Madam Monet, get me a few quills and ink bottles – the journal I have already –”

By _journal_ he meant Mirabelle's spare price ledger. She had, at least, been merciful enough to talk him down from his asking price of a hundred drakes for the thing. And perhaps it was mercy, too, that prompted her to suggest: “Water flask?”

“Oh. Yes. I'd nearly forgot. And a tinderbox and kettle. And that new mortar-and-pestle-- the _audience robes--_ ”

Mirabelle sorely hoped he wasn't speaking of the set he'd been wearing when she found him howling under the Doomstone, but couldn't get a word in for his rushing about, punctuated by Maelona's hasty descriptions of the innkeep and futile attempts to elicit more information, and at that point the shouting _did_ wake the longshoreman, who woke the other boarders in turn. Within the quarter-hour Lathenil was out the door, speeding toward Anvil's stables; it took twice that long for Mirabelle to set her customers to rights.

At the end of it, Maelona was still in the atrium. She took a deep breath and looked into Mirabelle's eye, all as though she were sharing some great confidence: a useful trick, no doubt, in her more covert days. “Would you happen to know what _would_ drive a Bosmer into the arms of Bjorn Stone-Fist?”

Mirabelle shook her head. She did have _some_ vague picture of the situation, but not enough for official business. To begin with, she had never heard of Bjorn Stone-Fist in her life. Of course she knew that one way or another, Lathenil's mind was jumping straight to those Thalmor; but then, when did he think of anything else?

Maelona was now gazing down at the flagstones. “I don't suppose _you_ believe we're in a new Era of Chaos?”

“Not particularly,” she said. (Maybe, maybe not. But if they were, what could one do anyway?)

“All right. I'll wait on the Fighters' Guild. Once they return, I can speak to Maenlorn myself.” She did not sound as though she wished the innkeep well. “But your elf – _he_ thinks he's running out into several centuries of bloodshed, doesn't he? Has he got a death wish?”

“Perhaps a little.” Mirabelle shook her head, still a bit stunned by his abrupt departure. If anyone without a scratch on him needed a convalescence period... “But he claims to have survived five attempts on his life thus far. And to judge by the state in which he came to me, I think we can call it six.” She smiled wryly at herself for assuming too much. “One, at any rate.”

 

* * *

 

_Summer (date unclear), 4E10_

_What a fool I am._

_How can I ever have let the mere name_ Falconbranch _draw me from Anvil into the chaos I knew full well would come? How can I have let myself believe, for even a moment, that Rynandor might live? Can this decade of stone walls and creeping bindweed possibly have transpired, if Rynandor were alive to come before the Potentate himself?_

_But I may as well go forward as back now. Anyone who knows of the Falconbranch, any mer who would take Stone-Fist before the Thalmor, is at the least an ally._

_I think I have miscalculated my bearing, traveling off the roads. Perhaps it is only the Lake's natural contour. Whatever the case, I have found myself on the outskirts of the town of Weynon. It is a settlement which has grown for the past decade, but now its abutment of the walls of Chorrol has become a matter of security, and Countess Valga rushes to expand the walls before the first army comes to test the point._

_I am using the opportunity to hear what rumors of war I may. (For the Black Horse Courier rides no more.)_

_They say Regulus Terentius was torn to pieces by an Altmer mob, calling themselves Ocato's supporters. Were there Men among them, had the same not befallen his son in the Imperial City, I might believe it._

_They say a whirlwind has stricken the Imperial City, its eye fixed on the White-Gold Tower. They say that the Imperial Prison is half-leveled and the Waterfront, houses and ships alike, reduced to so much splintered driftwood. Once again I must count myself fortunate to be alive._

_They speak of seemingly numberless heretofore-undeclared sons and daughters of the Septims. One question will suffice to dispatch the whole sorry lot of them: where were they when the Dragonfires went out?_

_No, I forget Antus the Ashdragon on Solstheim: a ten-year-old boy, whom his Sadras handlers call the son of Martin Septim by his Champion. I cannot decide which is the more disquieting thought: that, on hearing that the Potentate was dead, their first action was to find and steal a black Breton child? or that they had been grooming this child as a pretender since they first heard of Martin's sacrifice?_

_They say the Council has split into anywhere between three and seven armed factions, revolving either around one of these pretenders, or one of their own who makes no pretense. The names of Vorius and Barenziah are as close to legitimate as they come. The only geographic certainty is that Countess Valga has fallen in with Lucrece Donitia, who is liable to fall in with some Septim pretender any day now. No word regarding her daughter in Leyawiin. Beyond a day's riding distance, who can say where the lines are?_

_A man they call False Reuel is screaming in the town square that the battle lines will multiply until not a shred of tranquility is left in Tamriel – stewards slaying Counts, each family at war with every other, sons murdering mothers to secure the last roll of bread. He shouts that charity will be a fool's game, that ruthlessness and cunning will be the only fortress against death; I heard a woodsman thank him for being so foolish as to offer such valuable free advice. I am glad they call him false and mock him so: his prophecy is, I think, exactly as good as its hearers believe it to be._

_The greatest blow to my own concern: it is said that Bjorn Stone-Fist has seized Windhelm and set himself up as an Emperor, on grounds of descent from Ysgramor the Bloody. (No word of what this means for the High King in Winterhold.) I can only hope against hope that Maenlorn the innkeep has survived this development: to go forward, I fear, will be no more difficult than to turn back._

* * *

 

_30 Second Seed, 4E10_

Though Maelona had long since grown accustomed to the weight of the City Watch mail shirt, it had felt today like an anchor slung across her shoulders. Not that taking it off had helped matters much. After a silent supper and a withdrawal to her study, the weight had merely shifted to her head and her chest.

The Countess Umbranox was dead, murdered last night in her bed. There was word of a man found at the scene of the crime – not a hint, though, of what he had been doing or what he looked like or why he was not apprehended on the spot. It struck Maelona as a bad sop. She'd thought she knew well the two castle guards who had found her with the knife standing in her chest, guards who repeated that excuse for a story, and it _still_ struck her as a sop, something designed to produce a scapegoat without the inconvenient entailment that someone had to die.

What would make them close ranks so? The assassin couldn't be one of their own. Not the most popular among them would cause such unanimity: they had all signed up to serve Anvil, after all. But every one answered to Steward Dairihill and to her cousin, Captain Carmalo. Of the two, everyone in Anvil knew Carmalo had the final say, and now that Dairihill was the ruler of Anvil, that meant he had Anvil itself. He had a favorite pretender too, no doubt, and that might lie at the root; first it would need to come clear who that pretender was; but there was scant question in Maelona's mind as to whose word had ended the life of Millona Umbranox.

In the meantime – Carmalo was Maelona's captain as much as any guard's. She had a family in the city. She would be bound to live the same lie of obedience.

Of course, the will to murder was likely to have existed for years. Motive was nothing without opportunity. And for the usurpers, assassins and common thieves of Tamriel, an age of opportunity was dawning – every piece of the Empire free for the plucking. This was only the beginning.

She closed her eyes and weighed her options.

Lelles had proven about as observant a witness as always. She had learned that a member of the Fighter's Guild had recently been hired by Maenlorn, but he could not be consulted: three days ago he had been dispatched to the Jerall Mountains in search of an enchanted arrow – meaning that he was all too likely to run into the same border war as Maelona's own Fighter and that deranged High Elf.

That left only Mirabelle Monet. She would need to hear the whole truth of her investigation. It pointed to a terrible prospect, but anything, anything at all, was better than this. She prepared herself to tell all in the morning.

But Maelona was far from the only one in the city who could ask _cui bono_ of the Countess's murder. That morning, there was a riot against the Steward. The docks burned, and Mirabelle Monet with them.

 

* * *

 

_Summer (after 8 Mid Year), 4E10_

_Sleep has been scant. Dreamt last that I was back at the Special Council, and tried to warn Ocato of his danger. He wished to know how I knew. Even dreaming, I could not pretend to have an answer that could come to me before the deed was done_.

_But between closing my eyes and waking to that dream, there passed five hours. That is, at last, rest enough that I may confidently write again. And there is no immediate danger at my back._

_The woods of the Reserve are seething with vanguards, and bandits, and refugees, and hazy muddlings of the three. The Seventh Champion must be regretting her efforts to rebuild Cyrodiil's fortifications; it helps me determine where to pick my steps, but in the grand scheme of things it can only prolong the pain._

_I find myself glad, for the first time, that running and hiding are the things I do best. If I am killed, or questioned, or gang-pressed, the Thalmor will only laugh. At times I have little wish to move at all. I think it is despair that roots me so, and even now I cannot yield to despair – but twice, I was left undiscovered on account of that state. Still, I am no match for the senses of a half-starved dog pack, and the sound of fighting them off attracted the notice of a batallion. They answered to a “Gaius Septim”. No matter. I outlasted their pursuit, scathed no more than my makeshift poultices could bear. I imagine they had strayed far enough from camp already; I cannot account for it otherwise._

_I have learned since last entry:_

_The Councillor Jean Renard champions a commoner of Wayrest whose mother, he claims, was named Gemile. While I have not been able to parse the significance of this from what I have overheard, it evidently qualifies as a claim to the throne._

_Morgiah may or may not be dead, and if dead, then there are an assortment of picturesque betrayals to choose from. I daresay that, if she knew Artheyn Othren, then dead she is._

_There is reference to a Kratos of Hegathe and a Kratos of Stros M'kai, both Crowns and neither bothering with any claim to the throne beyond their own force of arms. I first wondered how they would be distinguished should one of those cities fall – but then I remembered: “Kratos” is an ancient title of Yokuda, meaning only “the strongest.” Indeed, if an Emperor of Tamriel could ever rise again from this chaos, “the strongest” would be the truest description. There are – I find it a strangely hard draught to swallow, after all these years – no more Septims. Yet even the rank impostors have the good grace to present a comely facade, and might thus be made to hew to it. One who builds his claim on blood and cold steel alone would reign on those terms as well, for no one would expect anything else._

_It seems the Imperial City belongs to no one. The Watch is trying to keep the peace on the strength of existing orders, but with the trade gone, and the storm's devastation, and the inevitability of another attempt at conquest, it cannot suffice._

_There are wishful rumors that any and all of the claimants (save Vorius and Morgiah, whose whereabouts were too well-known) entered the war direct from the gash the storm made in the Imperial Prison. Of course, many more must have died under the rubble than can ever have been freed._

_I stall._

_Maenlorn the innkeep is dead. Bjorn Stone-Fist's first drive was to conquer Bruma; I fear it is not incidental that there is no Empress in Windhelm and that the Countess of Bruma has married his boyhood rival. Such a bloody-handed Nord marauder, the Thalmor would never invent: it would be entirely too lazy a lie._

_An apt description in his blind hatred for the Aldmer, as well. In his failed assault on Pale Pass on 8 Mid Year, he sent Maenlorn direct to the flank – without any training beyond that which a barkeep might possess. It was far too easy to discover. Only one Bosmer ever bore the Bear of Windhelm._

_The Cyrodiilic custom, in discovering a body, is to recover a personal memento. I can only hope what I have taken truly is a personal marker, and not merely Stone-Fist's way of marking him for the slaughter. Nothing has been learned here, nothing gained, but no matter the state of the mission, I can only return to Anvil, and hope for word._

 

* * *

 

_7 Rain’s Hand, 4E10_

Kazarr prided himself on a job well done. Not for nothing, nor even for his dusk-grey coat, was he Azzan's chosen for the Fighters' missions of stealth. But there were always those times when the best of his ability could only do so much. He had determined the possible radius of distance, he had found his quarry, he had slipped unscathed past a score of formidable Altmer who kept their posts in almost a reverential hush, and for all that, the interview with the client would not be a happy one.

He unfolded the client's correspondence once again:

_They tell me to name no names, not even my own. They say all the facts are known to you. So you must know what they want, and if it's_ _wor..._

No. Not what Kazarr might call food for comfort. Best to get direct to the point.

He walked through the doors of the _Flowing Bowl_ as casually as any customer, sat in the corner beneath the stairs, and waited.

“You,” breathed Maenlorn. The look of him was even worse than at their last encounter – true, that had been done by messages thrown back and forth through his window at the last watch of the night, but Kazarr doubted he was steady enough now to catch the stones he'd wrapped them around. “Please, into the open, into the open – just at the top of the stair – no telling when they'll come back.”

They positioned themselves, Maenlorn looking down to the tavern floor and Kazarr seeing to the rooms behind.

“This one has completed the task,” Kazarr began--

Maenlorn seized his shoulder like a drowning man. “Caenlorn. You found him – you – then – why isn't he--”

“Dead,” said Kazarr. “In the vaults of Garlas Malatar.”

The Bosmer bent as though struck by the slavemaster: a hard blow, but not one that came unexpected. “How long?” It was a voice that begged for mercy. “How long was he dead?”

“Two weeks at least. Likely more – only the left thumb was broken, and so this one believes...” Kazarr stopped there. The client was plainly in no state to hear these things.

“The instant.” Maenlorn sank to the floor and into his knees, all thought of vigilance forgotten. “The instant I acceded. Oh gods...”

Kazarr gripped his arm. “The task it gave me is done – but this is no longer a matter for which a client must pay. The body of Caenlorn was one of a dozen, and not the most recent.” Kazarr preferred to give a thorough report, but _be comforted that your brother's body still had its skin_ was not advice likely to be followed. “Twenty Altmer were there, having two boats anchored, organized in arms which this one could not hope to overcome, and what talk I heard said these were reporting to others.”

The Bosmer raised his head. “And the Fighter's Guild would pay from its own coffers?”

Kazarr nodded firmly. “By its consent, Master Oreyn himself will see that justice is had.”

Maenlorn's eyes shone with gratitude – an instant before they abruptly shuttered in on themselves. “No.” The voice shook, but the finality could not be mistaken. “No, I have had sorrow enough.”

Kazarr ought to have known. The Fighter's Guild never had many blackmail victims among their clients, and whatever had happened here must, at the least, have made the raw materials for blackmail.

* * *

 

_25 Mid Year, 4E10_

The seaside towers of Anvil had a blackened look to them, and there were new walls against the shore. The men at the gates had weariness traced into their faces.

“Fort Siren sends their observation, and classes you as a refugee. Vagrant?” asked the taller guardsman, the Redguard, with a rote dullness.

Vagrant. Perhaps he was that. Poor, without home, cast adrift, shaky in the mind. But Lathenil was sure saying so would not get him past the gates, and said only: “What a strange first question.”

“No,” said the Imperial guardsman decidedly. “Now we can hope for a _good_ reason to let you through.”

“Andrus,” said the Redguard in warning tones.

“The Fox isn't going to stripe us for _disapproving_ ,” yawned the Imperial. “At any rate, we all do, and he hasn't.”

Lathenil looked hard between the both of them, trying to spot the signs of a joke and finding none. “Fox – you can't mean _the_ Fox? The Cyrodiilic legend? Prince of thieves, friend to beggars, centuries old without a trace of merish blood...”

“...master of Anvil,” finished the Imperial dryly. “Truly, this is an age of myth. But he's not looking like half the thief his predecessor was, and he certainly wouldn't steal from a poor sot like _you_. Feel free to state your business.”

He racked his brains for a possible restatement of his business that might appeal to the kind of pretender who fancied pretending to be a master thief. “I am Lathenil of Sunhold... and...”

“Ah! sounds familiar,” said the Redguard, who promptly disappeared into the tower. On reemergence, he said, “Yes, you've got a friend from the Summerset Isles who asked that we open the gates for you if you came. Shall I inform him?”

“By no means,” said Lathenil, feeling himself pale. “Tell me where he is likely to be, that I may stay well clear.”

The guard grinned. “He told me you might say something of that nature, and that in that case I was to give you this.”

He tossed Lathenil a cheese-knife, the handle painted in the cabal's script. It read: _This is Shasten you idiot._

 

* * *

 

On the other side of the gate, the Sunholders clasped hands. Though Shasten looked deeply misplaced in the dun robe that signified a magister's servant, his face was nearly unchanged since last Lathenil saw him, nearly ten years ago.

“You got across,” said Lathenil faintly. “How?”

He sniffed the air: Anvil had a stench to it that had not been there before. And there were sounds of shouting and tears in the air.

“One of Fiorana's reserve boats,” said Shasten. “Room for me, my documents, and an Imperial family in Alinor that thought it'd be healthier this side of the strait. She found a good window of time to slip us past, too, and _before_ the Kratoses and Camorans and assorted Septims made everything beyond the blockade line into a war zone.”

In other words, it did not mean Lathenil could pass the strait the other way.

“These documents, anyway, you'll want to see them.” Shasten swung his pack to his belly with his left hand...

...which was not a hand at all, but a thumb and a heel, missing all four fingers and a good bit of flesh and bone further down.

“What, what happened--”

“Ah, right, the hand. Long story short, Lillandril is openly and vehemently against the Thalmor.” He looked down and grimly resumed rifling through his pack.

“That – I think I perhaps need a longer story than...”

Shasten sighed and took his good hand out of the pack. “All right. They went after Weldor for those staves, and Weldor never knowing what I'd set him up against. Killed him.” Shasten looked a little ill at the memory. “I lost the hand trying to get in the way of that sword. But that's when the Lillandril Watch showed up; didn't like the sound of battle at a shop in the dead of night. Saved me, and then let me tell them the gist of it.”

“The documents come from Lillandril, then,” said Lathenil. “The King and Queen wished them conveyed to the Empire – not knowing what has happened--”

“Would make more sense,” said Shasten, guiding him to the left, “but no, it was my own fool idea. After Lillandril. Come on to the south tents; it'd just beat all if these papers were scattered by a stiff wind on top of everything else.”

Lathenil sharpened his gaze ahead. Tents indeed. The extent of it did not sink in until he got to the turning. Canvas and leather and the odd bedraggled quilt, bolstered with varying success (there did not always seem to be enough wood to do the thing properly) stretched from the lake to the south wall, noisome and ragged. There was some local decree keeping three lanes of open thoroughfare, two for the permanent structures along the east and west walls and a central one toward the palace, but elsewhere every inch was taken and more seemed needed; about a dozen squabbles and trades were in process over that issue, and Lathenil could not always tell one from the other. The mushmouthed wheedle of the lifelong beggar was a prominent note in the chorus. The whole plaza had a fractured identity to it, a bandit's camp tenuously rearranging itself as one of the more charitable Great Chapels.

As they waded into the mire he saw a young, bony Imperial woman, and a boy of about ten with a family resemblance, emerge from under a large pup tent whose fabric had an odd and no doubt inconvenient angle to it – a sail, he realized. No doubt the spare sail of Fiorana's boat.

“Shasten,” said the woman. “This would be the other original Sunholder, no doubt. It is good to meet you.” She was going through rote and no mistake, but it was good to see even forced decorum here.

“You are a friend of his, then,” said Lathenil, giving Shasten a sidelong look. If he had forgotten the rules regarding accomplices...

Shasten shrugged. “I can't very well cross the Strait by my own power, can I? Lathenil, meet Analucia and Galen Corrinus – they have parents and an elder cousin as well, they're offshore working on setting up fish traps so the distance from port is kept to a minimum –”

“Not that Anvil apparently has a choice,” said Analucia. “Half the ships at port were destroyed in some riot before we arrived, and almost all of the rest have been commandeered for naval use. It won't be enough; this city is the greatest prize of the Gold Coast--”

“Stop _saying_ that, Ana!” The boy, Galen, glared up at her. “The Hammerfell men are fighting each other right now, fierce as anything, so when they're done with that, there won't be enough left to take us on anyway.”

“Either way, we'll be awfully hungry, and soon.” Analucia turned back to Lathenil stiffly, a plucked reed still supple but beginning to dry. “Would you believe we left Alinor for reasons of health?” She winced. “Oh. Yes, I imagine you would.”

“I cannot fault you your reason,” said Lathenil dully. “If one cannot get upstream of the poison, one can at least abstain from drinking at the source.”

Analucia looked blank for a moment, before turning wild-eyed to Shasten. “You said – that oilskin – you quite clearly said it wasn't--”

Shasten turned a mortified shade of bronze. “I'll, er. I'll explain later. I did think – but no, I was the great fool of that – later, Ana.” He led Lathenil, stepping long and carefully across more a dozen tentsites, to the corner where the palace gatehouse met the east wall, seemingly for the sole purpose of putting the girl at a distance.

“How did you know?” said Shasten wonderingly.

Lathenil laughed joylessly. “Know? Know that Ocato's blood falls at their feet? They, the only ones who can possibly have gained by it? You seem so amazed, but the only amazement is that, at the sound of the word _Thalmor_ , all Cyrodiil stoppers its ears: all but Ocato. How did I _know_ \-- but you speak as though...”

Shasten nodded grimly. “Probably best to start where I left off. After the fight, Fiorana decided I made a better story for Lillandril dead. Then it turned out she had use for me in Alinor."

Lathenil frowned, trying to parse this. “Fiorana certainly seems... ah... _omnipresent_.”

“Well – there's a network now. No good asking more; I don't doubt the integrity of anyone in it, or I'd never have got away clean, but there are vows at work here.”

Lathenil nodded in acceptance. Anything that worked to preserve the Kings, Queens and Councils was a balm to him, however unknown the quantity.

“So Fiorana passed her assignment. Turns out there are some jobs the Thalmor will only let Altmer do... only it helps if they're a bit, ah...”

He curled his maimed hand up in front of him as though it had languished long before healing, let his face sag into an empty, simple smile, and bobbed his head idiotically. Then he lapsed back, shaking the  arm out with ferocity. “Bad habit to maintain. Don't ever hold your arm like that for months at a go.”

It came to Lathenil that Shasten would never spend time at the forge again. But surely Shasten was well-acquainted with the subject. Best simply to keep talking. “This assignment, then. What was it?”

“Disposal of materials,” said Shasten.

“Thalmor-proscribed?” hazarded Lathenil.

“A lot of that, yes. Plenty of those from the library of Firsthold, and if anyone there asks, it's been gone since the daedra ravaged the place...”

Lathenil's gut lurched in sick anger.

“So after about a week at the bonfire, they decided I wasn't a layabout in need of the whip, and left me to myself when they weren't coming in with carts and ashcans.” Shasten sat and undid his pack. “Mostly it was only a matter of seeing _what_ they were burning; I couldn't smuggle out more than the one volume per day. There were these loose-bound little brown books, Thalmor make, that were guaranteed to be fruitful sources of intelligence... but it was never good news. They don't seem to burn them unless they've disposed of someone. I began at last to simply take note of the names on the spine.”

He produced an oilskin and unfolded it to reveal a thick sheaf of papers with two rips in the side. “This one didn't have anyone's name on the spine; only this Ayleid word, _Vanua_. It was the _size_ of it that got my attention...”

He passed it into Lathenil's hands. 

_VANUA  
Objective: The elimination of Ocato of Firsthold, by fully veiled cooperative assets, under condition that there is scant chance of replacement..._

It was nothing Lathenil had not already known. Why, then, did he have the sensation of a blow to the stomach? Why those words reverberating through his skull? _Long live the Empire. Long live the Empire..._

“Three different stratagems,” said Shasten. “Three agencies and their pawns. Every obstacle and weak point noted. Everything cross-referenced beyond belief – so I was glad to hear it was Gellius Terentius they used. If it had been that Nord priest, you'd have been dead.”

“And by dint that it wasn't, you took me to be alive?” Lathenil's eyes must have been popping over the page; he knew the discomfited shift in Shasten's gaze. “I have set myself against them, and their thirst for my blood will not be bated. Sharpened on occasions, perhaps. And perhaps this war they have made is not a thing they care to risk their hides in. But the war itself can kill just as surely.”

And kill Shasten as well, he realized. Shasten of Sunhold – truly a mer of Sunhold, not a resettler, for he had served a Summerguard quartermaster against the daedra, far from the Crystal Tower – was all too likely to die on this desolate northern shore, without need for the Thalmor to raise another finger.

“How can you have come, Shasten, knowing what awaited you here?”

Shasten looked askance toward the ground, scratching his head with the thumb of his ruined hand. “Would you believe wishful thinking? That thing you're holding... there's just about nothing in there about how they were going to be _sure_ there wasn't a replacement in the offing. I chalked it up to Thalmor arrogance, and do you know why?”

By the melancholy twist to Shasten's mouth, Lathenil guessed his reason was not that the Thalmor were, after all, an arrogant lot.

“I wanted _out_ ,” said Shasten. “If I had a case that there were authorities left to present to, then these papers made me a passage. That's the only reason. Even if I didn't angle myself to really believe my own line, I thought anything, anything whatsoever must be better than life as a dim-witted chore boy in a secret Thalmor office.” He barked a laugh. “Might still be right about that, at least.”

Lathenil frowned at the castle gates. “We can't deny that there _are_ authorities...”

“Crown Prince Shadyrn, primarily. Fairly sure the note on Delbar the Fleet under the Hold Until Fruition header bodes badly for him. He's been warned; we're not idiots.”

“Ah... good.” The warning, that was. Not the idea that the Thalmor were readied to strike at the seat of Alinor the instant Ocato's body had cooled. “But even in Cyrodiil...”

“Right,” said Shasten incredulously. “His Munificence the Gray Fox. You think he'd take into account aspects of this document other than its monetary value? And Steward Dairihill – that'd be the authority as of last week – she'd smile and stow it away and run for her cousin the Captain of the Guard, who'd burn it. Just like all the other petitions that stood a chance of weakening his hold on the city. Maybe next week it'll be someone better, but then you've got to consider the week after that. Look, Lathenil, let's consider _you_ the authority here – can't think of anyone better to trust.”

So, girding himself, Lathenil set his eyes to the page. It was hard reading. Of course it was. Yet once it was done, he found it provided something he had never had before: an unmistakable answer to any Heartlander who asked what the Thalmor were.

He would not, of course, let it out of his possession. But he would assuredly not show reserve in disclosing its contents. Even the poor opportunity afforded by his appointment with Maelona the guardswoman could not be ignored.

 

* * *

 

_5 Rain’s Hand, 4E10_

The rich Altmer's terms made a fortress wall all about him. His eyes alone saw it; he had breached the perimeter only once, by smuggling a plea for aid into Pinarius Inventius' note of receipt. The customers had come and gone, unconcerned, though the Altmer reserved the right to bar entrance when he saw fit. He had granted the _Flowing Bowl_ a cook; that, too, was part of the mandate, and so no one asked after Caenlorn.

If anyone had, he was drilled on what to say: Caenlorn was checking the books of the wine supplier from Skingrad. A story that might place him, depending on the persistence of the inquirer, as close as the counting-house, or as far as the Imperial City, and with every reason not to expect him to linger.

There were many drills, at night in the cellar. If he was asked concerning his health, he was indeed ill. If he might ever feel a sudden shock, he was taught how to conceal it under an ingratiating grin. And if Caenlorn's captor ever gave a lively anecdote concerning slaughterfish fins...

The time was coming, he was sure. The entrance was, now, barred. Seven guests had been allowed through: Altmer, all. It was their doorman who saw who did and did not have a reservation. Maenlorn was paid for it, in the usual rate. The guests behaved more or less as guests did, when they had the _Bowl_ to themselves, though when their tones turned low, he knew it was not a business separate from his own that they discussed. For three days now, it had been like that. It was all coming together, like the framework of some awful machine.

If his Fighter's Guild contact returned now, and Caenlorn... Maenlorn only hoped they would know not to try and enter.

He brought food from the impostor in the kitchens. He scrubbed the molten wax from the bar. He returned to the kitchens with soiled plates. He returned to the bar. He let a song of Walking Falinesti run through his mind, a song he had learned from a girl he had loved in the old country, a song Caenlorn had never heard, drowning out the patter of the patron, which had turned strangely sailor-like. He saw no one was retiring to their rooms. He went back to the kitchens with more food, lighter fare, no further drinks. He stood at the bar. He stood at the bar.

The door was opened.

 

* * *

 

The fine house toward the north end of town was, evidently, no longer Maelona's address, but (by order of the Gray Fox) a lodging-house teeming almost to bursting with the first of Anvil's refugees: the last days of Crystal-Like-Law, writ small and without any attempt to impose peace or order from on high. Through the crack in the door, Lathenil had seen a man slumped against the atrium wall, snarling as blood flowed freely from his scalp. No one seemed to waste sympathy over him, which Lathenil hoped meant that he was objectively in the wrong. Whatever the case, a resident soon set him on the right course, and he found himself stepping over the beginnings of a new wall, sea-pebble and mortar, in a burned-out framework held together with not much more spit and hope, and ascending a set of thankfully reinforced stairs to the one enclosed room in the place.

“Who goes?” called Maelona's voice.

“Lathenil of Sunhold. Bearing word of the innkeep Maenlorn.”

A pause. “Lessa, go play by the seashore.”

A scrappy dirt-blond Bosmer girl opened the door, neatly sidestepping Lathenil at a rush down the narrow stair and giggling madly; perched on the fine double bed crammed into the end of the room, barely restraining a smile, was a somewhat smaller girl, a Redguard with a half-braided length of cornsilk in her hand, bearing a marked resemblance to the unamused Maelona seated at the desk by the doorframe.

Her mother sighed. “Right. If Alley is Lessa, you must be Esh. Down to the shore yourself, 'Esh'. All Alessias of your acquaintance down to the shore, barring input from their own parents.”

The girl let herself down to the floor begrudgingly. “How did you know...”

“Trade secret,” said Maelona. “But you're welcome to try and figure it out. If you want to solve mysteries, real mysteries, start with the small ones. Now go!”

This she did very quickly, in a futile effort to catch up the elder girl's stride; now that the guessing game was over, the obvious ploy to keep her out of the loop did not seem to dismay her. Odd, but then in retrospect, Lathenil's father had probably thanked the Aedra for the size of the homestead every time a private discussion became necessary...

Maelona then arranged the furniture – no mean feat; this was less a room than a fragment of narrow corridor – so that the desk divided two stools: Lathenil's against the door, hers with access to the window.

“So,” she said quietly.

Lathenil rummaged through his pack and laid on the desk the innkeep's memento: a sewn band of blue cloth, cut from around his wrist. “Dead,” he said. “Stone-Fist as good as murdered him at Pale Pass.”

Maelona picked up the cloth. “Bad hemming,” she murmured. “But a good seam running vertically – not whole cloth, then. I'd bet Fort Siren that it matches the torn jacket in the kitchen's closet... well, that would settle the question of Caenlorn, at least.”

“Caenlorn?”

“Maenlorn's twin brother. Worked at the _Flowing Bowl_ as well. They looked just alike, at least to any guest of an evening, so he would insist on wearing blue jackets to distinguish himself.”

The description woke a long-dormant memory. “You... you mean the singer.”

“Cook, actually."

“Perhaps that too. But he certainly was a singer.” Lathenil forcefully averted his eyes from the blue band. “Dead too, I take it?”

“Yes,” said Maelona without ornament. “What's more, Maenlorn mourned him, which rules out the worst I thought of him. But be that as it may, he can't bear witness; you can. So tell me: what did you believe it meant, that he went to Bjorn Stone-Fist? Other than that it was a rash decision, I mean. That much is obvious.”

Lathenil took a deep breath and remembered exactly where the oilskin was in his bag. “The prime fact of Stone-Fist, to myself and no doubt to the innkeep Maenlorn, is his hatred for the Aldmeri... Dunmer-exclusive sense of the word, of course. But Maenlorn may have had cause to see a vain hope in that. The great champions of the Aldmeri people – the Thalmor, the separatists of Summerset – no, not _of_ Summerset, never _of_. They devour her. They are poison made flesh. Stone-Fist capitalized on – on Ocato's death – but it was the Thalmor who spilled his life's blood – likely murdering your Champion along the way--”

At this, Maelona laughed in his face. “You think these, er, separatists killed Vienne to get to _Ocato_? If they wanted to destabilize the Empire, they ought to have passed Vienne over; Ocato's not exactly a great sainted martyr... not to most people, anyway,” she added hastily, seeing the look on his face. “And they could very easily pass her over. She _despised_ Ocato. And as for the implementation – I mean – it's like Itius always said: if the first step of your plan is 'kill the Hero of...'”

She trailed off with a look of dawning horror in her eyes. “I never told you Vienne was involved.”

  

* * *

 

_5 Rain’s Hand, 4E10_

 

Unmistakable. Maenlorn set his features into an ingratiating smile, barely hearing the word _slaughterfish_ as it left the patron's lips.

Unmistakable.

A Dunmer woman with auburn hair. The helm of the Blades. A breastplate like the breastplate of Tiber Septim. It was only a plain longsword swinging at her hip, but that was right, too: it was whispered she had left the katana, Dagon's Bane, among the swords of the dead.

“Yes, I remember now,” she said, half to Maenlorn and half to herself. “Maenlorn. The one in brown.” She frowned. “You look ill.”

“Afraid appearances are accurate. Champion,” he added, seasoning his false smile by shaking his head in real wonder. Back to the lines rehearsed. “To what do I owe the honor?”

“You have had word of a ship, they say. A ship coming from the west of Hammerfell, bearing a remnant of the Mythic Dawn?”

He had rehearsed for the question of a ship, too. The details of that question were to be ignored. They would only impede the performance. “It would interest you, come to that. The ship's name is the _Falconbranch._ But the word is all second-hand – it's the captain there who knows all.”

She smiled, nodded, and turned to the table where the patron sat. No eyes for Maenlorn any more, only for her. The talk began to run smooth as good brandy. How _had_ they avoided the embargo on Summerset? By the simple expedient, said a sailor, of being caught on the other side of it when it was put into place. How had Vienne heard of the _Falconbranch_? She told. Ah, said another sailor, that must have been his cousin in Bravil, and it _would_ be just like her to run for the nearest constable, but there was no helping it now. Documents were laid on the table.

Maenlorn began to busy himself scrubbing every unoccupied table, head down and knuckles against the wood.

The patron told the riveting tale of how he had obtained them from the Mythic Dawn in the wilds near Hegathe. How the notes were unclear on the point of provenance, but almost certain that the landing point would be Anvil. How there was an almost impeccable vantage point further along the Gold Coast, where they might lay in wait. Vienne volunteered herself into the effort. She did not wish them to die needlessly. She spoke of tactics. She spoke of contingencies for Savlian Matius and Narina Carvain should the effort fail, but she was confident that Grandmaster Baurus was quite well prepared already.

When they gave back his brother, how would they receive one another? How could Maenlorn explain the price he had paid? Could he look Caenlorn in the eye again? His breath was becoming –

“Maenlorn.” The Champion's voice, at his shoulder. “What's the matter?" _  
_

He looked her in the eye and swallowed. “Forgive me, Champion. Not of concern to you, I know – but I – lost my brother, not long ago. The same sickness.”

She clasped her hands in his. Gently, though he could feel the calluses and the iron strength. The moment held; she only nodded in understanding, allowed him to weep freely. _  
_

And then the moment was done, and the patron beckoned, and Maenlorn stood behind and watched her leave the inn, surrounded on all sides.

 

* * *

 

“I heard only a few sentences,” said Maelona. “ _The ship's name is the Falconbranch,_ he said. I've forgotten the rest. It wasn't my concern, then. The Dragon armor could only mean she thought the matter serious, but this was _Vienne_. We all knew she could handle herself. It wasn't until Count Terentius wrote me asking when she'd be back... she'd intended to pass the reins to the City Watch as soon as she returned; Bravil was well in hand by then; but that letter came a _month_ after I saw her go into the Flowing Bowl...”

“It begins to come clear,” said Lathenil, the gorge rising in his throat. “What you heard Maenlorn say regarding the _Falconbranch_ – duress on his part, have no doubt – but behind it, some Thalmor official is amusing himself with an inside joke. That was the name of the Seer Rynandor's purported exile vessel, when they slew _him_ by treachery. _Our_ great hero of the Anguish, and they scarcely flinched at that; what's an Empire-loving Dunmer by compare?”

Maelona stared at him, appalled.

“I am speaking from _their_ point of view,” snapped Lathenil. “I’ve brought along a little writing sample of theirs, if you care to test it.”

 

* * *

 

_6 Rain’s Hand, 4E10_

“Leave us,” said Serranur, eyes fixed on the stirring prisoner.

The boatsmer filed out, but with uncommon slowness. Cerran gave him a rare glance of trepidation.

“We’ve made all the proper precautions,” he said gently, speeding them on their way. Hands, feet, forearms and shins – all broken within the first paralysis spell. The endless drill and exercise had paid off.

It troubled Serranur, a bit, that they had never questioned his desire for privacy until the prisoner had been of the Order of the Dragon. They had shown no desire even to ask. Did they imagine he would defile himself on these enemies of the Altmer?

Regardless, it worked to his advantage. There was no time for interrogation by any standard protocol, and yet there were crucial points to be made clear. He was reduced to giving information, and thus learning the truth of matters by the light of her face.

Even in the preparatory stages, it had been maddeningly difficult to find a solid _fact_ in the morass of legends surrounding the Hero of Kvatch. There had been Gellius Terentius’ intriguing account of a visit she had made to Castle Bravil, which certainly required a second look. There was, at least, the incontrovertible record of her role in the Lesser Gate at Kvatch and the Great Gate at Bruma. But he had found only one thing he might depend on to snare her: accounts said she had once walked into a gibbet and been lowered into a lava pit of her own free will, simply because the mer asking it of her had expressed regret for his role in the burning of Kvatch. No hagiographer would dare _invent_ something so idiotic.

Serranur took the finest workman’s knife from from the table. “And so you wake.”

The Dunmer’s face was pulled taut in pain. That was the background, of course; it was the fine details you had to watch. She, then, was calmer than was usual, and her bearing colored with a touch of defiance, even scorn.

“I confess amazement at how simply you were taken in.” Actually, matters had transpired almost strictly according to prediction, but if he could see how she responded to a goad…

“Then –” She screamed sharply. She had tried to thrust herself forward, pulling every broken part of her against every manacle at once. Yet she resumed speaking, however belabored, before the minute was up. “Then – you ought to be feeling lucky I didn’t cut you down before we ever got to the docks…”

Retorts. Excellent. Precisely what he had hoped for. No cold layout of the rules and the parameters, then; he simply made a swiping cut in her upper arm.

“You know you’ve lost,” she said through gritted teeth. “You know that no matter what you do here, it’s finished. Ten years ago.”

So she assumed he must be of the Mythic Dawn, did she? A more vicious cut, across the left cheek, to lend credence to the idea. “Along with the Septim bloodline,” he said. “Or so they say. But you know better. Don’t you?”

A feral baring of the teeth. “If I did – you think, after all these years – I’d start by telling _you_?”

“I think,” said Serranur evenly, “that you began by telling Regulus Terentius.”

The betrayal of shock for the fraction of an instant. That was all it took to know, and the Imperial Liaisons were to know at once. But he did not let it show. Whatever her belief of the upper hand, he wished mightily to preserve it.

“But that is not why you are here.” He let it hang in the air, let her fears float to the surface. “You are here to tell me of the Blades.”

“I won’t. You know that.” But despite the bold words, the relaxation was palpable. The usual account was likely the correct one, then: she had been a provisional Blade only, and resigned at the end of the Anguish. If not, she still had no worthwhile information. A secondary query, though. The Blades were not likely to be a concern for much longer than the Empire was.

But retribution was still called for. He applied a more methodical cut, this one across the surface of the abdomen, and she could not help but cry out. “You will, in time,” he said; it was a capital mistake ever to let a captive with the first ounce of courage think that death would soon release them.

“But there are questions you will find easier to answer, I think, than those concerning your sworn shield-brothers. For instance, the question of the Potentate Ocato’s daily schedule.”

Laughter. Harsh, broken by hisses, unmistakably genuine. “You went to all this trouble to take me – without even knowing…” Another short laugh. “You imagine, that simply because we fought the Battle of the Imperial City in the same cohort… Oh, I do _so hate –_ to break it to you – but Ocato and I are not on the best of terms. To think we _swap schedules_ \--”

 _Now_ , Serranur let his triumph show, a grin widening over his face. The struggle of the Aldmer would be a long one. There was no point in not savoring what small victories came along the way. “You mean, then, that he has no idea that you were in Anvil. That he has no idea what has become of you. That he will never know you no longer stand to defend his life.”

Her face, now, became something direct from basic instruction: the Point of Despair. Incomprehension, half genuine, half willful, dissolving away with every passing minute, leaving in the end only the naked anguish that was underneath all along. Her head, held high through the rest of the inquiry, at last fell.

“E-even now?”

Her voice shook like a dead flower in the wind. Serranur was sorely tempted to answer in the affirmative – she sounded as though she might fly apart if he did – but alas, he did not know the object of her question. Information before pleasure, he was afraid, and the lateness of the day did not matter.

“Even – even your last request?”

Serranur swore inwardly. The Empire’s champion herself… no question that _she_ had been incapacitated as a threat. Yet she had been an Archmage. If there were some enchantment on her person, something that might alert others…

He touched the signal rune they had laid on the opposite wall. The others were closer to the entrance than he. He would not be the last one to know they were dead, the last defender of the Agency. It would mean the Dominion imperiled before it ever came to be.

But even as his Agents rushed in, he knew it had been a false alarm. There was no triumph, however bitter, in her face; indeed, tears were leaking from the famed warrior’s eyes as though she were a small girl.

“Martin,” she whispered. “ _Martin_ …”

Serranur, deciding this was as close to a statement of surrender as he was ever likely to get, picked up the clean-edged hunting knife, and, stepping delicately to the side, put it through her trachea.

“It’s as I always tell you,” he said to the others, smiling. “Dismay in the eyes of the enemy – it is a rare pleasure to witness. I would not deny you that.”

And so, at a stroke, he had saved face, offered a strong case for his unorthodox tactics, and put an end to perhaps the most perilous task in the short history of Thalmor operations. He was, he thought, to be congratulated.

But by the deep of the night, he was sorely wishing he had killed her sooner.

If she had actually _heard_ Martin Septim’s last request…

* * *

_“Vienne.”_ Maelona, having read Shasten's file in full, sat stunned. “And to _think_ of using Ilav Dralgoner – how _could_ they--”

Lathenil cleared his throat. “I – did not know she was a friend of yours. I would have told you more gracefully of her death, had I...”

Maelona smiled bitterly. “Oh, she can only be dead. If not, there'd be no question of her whereabouts – beside Count Matius or Baurus, or doing something about that _Antus the Ashdragon..._ his puppeteers, I mean; _he's_ only a child... no, all Oblivion couldn't keep her from doing some bit for the Empire. What's left of it. And she was willing to die for the Empire, too. But like this...”

She burst suddenly into wild, mad, tearful laughter which did not die down until her lungs were spent.

“Sorry,” she was at last able to gasp between spasms. “I know it's not really _funny_ – but I guess we should all be grateful she didn't get the death she'd actually have wanted – she had this problem with high standards...”

Lathenil bowed his head. “If her death was cruel, you may at least think better of the Champion herself. She would not have abandoned him. She would have saved the Potentate.”

“Well,” said Maelona weakly, with one last giggle. “In truly dire straits. If she had this paper shoved before her face, the unofficial Bravil Gallants charter might give her no choice. When she gave me the offer of joining, and Gogan – this was before we were _really_ married – we were invited to _aid in the rebuilding of Tamriel._ Sounds like standard official pomp, only she never stopped saying it. I think she actually went to bed each night asking herself if she'd helped rebuild Tamriel that day.”

* * *

 

_12 Second Seed, 4E10  
_

The last request of Martin Septim. Curious. That was a question Father Jeelius had never had before, though pilgrims, historians and theologians all knew he had the narrative direct from the Hero’s lips, and alas, it was far the first time he had been followed to a Wayshrine for such questions. But the answer took scarcely an instant to fathom.

“He asked that his champion trust him,” he told the Altmer sitting next to him, “and that she lead him safely past the grasp of Dagon into the Temple of the One.”

The Altmer smiled. There was a gratification in that smile, but it was a gratification of petty triumph, a thousand miles removed from the contemplation of Aetherius. Jeelius had long since resigned himself that some mortals would receive the most sublime of the Divines’ blessings that way.

“I thank you,” said the Altmer, cavalierly. “Blessings of the Divines upon you.” He put his feet on the ground and walked back toward the Gold Road.

For a few steps, before he turned again. “If I come to ask, I may as well ask thoroughly. What were the Emperor’s last _words_?”

“These words, I only know to exactness from the point he entered the Temple of the One. But I know them well. He said: _I do what I must do. I cannot stay to rebuild Tamriel. That task falls to others. Farewell. You've been a good friend, in the short time that I've known you. But now I must go. The Dragon waits._ ”

A pause. “I thank you,” said the Altmer again, more quietly. He halted at the edge of the Gold Road when he came to it, took a long moment deciding, and eventually turned his steps to the east.

 

* * *

 

Maelona let her arms fall out from under her and slumped onto the table. “Why? Why would they do this?”

Still in her hand was the scrap of blue cloth. He looked on it, remembering the blue-clad mer who had sung at that harborside inn long ago, the Wolf of Kvatch at his side, in Ocato's voice and the words of a grateful Empire.

And then he swallowed painfully and told Maelona the truth.

“They want a diversion. That's all this is to them. The Thalmor do wish to conquer men, rule them as the Ayleids of old did – but – they need legality, strength of numbers... to have my people in their grasp... O, Summerset--”

Maelona raised her head and met his eyes. Hers gleamed like coarse steel, and Lathenil's heart leapt at the sight.

“Only – yes – you and I, and Shasten – we know better. You're – you're an officer of the guard, aren't you? If you can muster a force for the Summerset Isles...”

“Me,” said Maelona bitterly. “A shining spearhead for all the good of the Empire – oh, but I forget. _There is no Empire._ ”

“That--” Lathenil stood and flung his stool to the floor. “From the moment we sat at this table, we have discussed nothing else! Only the Thalmor! Only what their treachery and murder has wrought you! Should they overcome my homeland – which is apparently a prize you would not deny them – they will hardly halt at the shore, they will consume the ragged kingdoms of Man one by one, and Anvil among the first – _how_ you can--” He found himself utterly speechless.

Maelona rose quietly, crossed the desk in two steps, and righted the stool.

“Do you know what I hoped to find?” she said.

Lathenil could not begin to imagine.

“I had hoped that there was some great force just over the horizon, or just underground. Already poised to strike. Something against which we would have no choice but to unite. I could think of nothing else that would have killed her – nothing but the Mythic Dawn, and she'd certainly seen _their_ best effort.

“And I was wrong.” She shook her head in slow resignation. “This sheaf of paper you bring me... it's no deed of union. It's nothing more than another outlandish claim to power. A great friend of the Champion of Cyrodiil, of whom you have never heard, claims she and the Potentate were murdered by a conspiracy of High Elves of which you have also never heard, and so, for justice's sake, takes stake in the Summerset Isles. Emptying Anvil's harbor just to get there, if the embargo is as serious as I've heard. And then where one claim is staked...”

Maelona laid her hand on his shoulder and fixed him with her eyes. “Lathenil – I can't escape the feeling that you truly _love_ the Summerset Isles, and that can only mean you don't know what you're asking. I swear to you now, I will _not_ do to your homeland what the Thalmor did to us.”

Lathenil accepted it, in that moment, for the bitter comfort it was. He was glad he left himself that moment. In the days to come, the full implications of Maelona’s words would begin to sink in.

 

* * *

 

 

_The Thalmor have always held it best that we keep the Empire at arm's length. If any of our policy has been often chafed at by a well-meaning opposition, the diplomatic embargo is that policy._

_I trust, now, that there is no more doubt that it was done with all wisdom._

_Ocato was a hero of Blue Strait, who, in one of the darkest times of Valenwood's history, emerged from the shadows of Firsthold to stand for the Altmer, and all the Aldmeri people in the end. That he was then suborned by the sons of Tiber Septim, slaughterer of our people, is perhaps the greatest tragedy of the age. After decades of such shackled servitude, after the accursed Septim line ended in the Anguish, after our ancient magic ended the Anguish itself – even then, Ocato did not return to his brethren. He maintained the foolish hope that the Empire of Man might be reformed from within, kept that hope even as the Inner Council forced upon his lips the greatest Imperialist lie since the death of Tiber Septim himself!_

_He was gravely mistaken. The Empire could not have been saved from itself, not by the best will. Ocato is dead at the hands of his own bodyguard, an Imperial who had quietly served him for years, and by this deceit and treachery of Man, their Empire has fallen, and only the lies of Men maintain even the warlords' bands that remain._

_O people of Alinor, weep for Ocato. Weep for all the Aldmer who believed as he did and settled in the Empire, who now face death and horror in a war not of their making._

_But do not let us fall prey to the same fatal compassion. Let us not be drawn into the maelstrom that swallows the rest of Tamriel; it is for Men to stoop so. Let us stand apart as we have done since the subsiding of the waves, in peace, in prosperity, in the glory of Aldmeris._

_\--Speeches and Sayings of the Lady Sage Arranelya_ (original edition, prior to expurgation, 4E15)

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> In polite society, the phrase for all this is "I think Shivering Isles is pretty counterintuitive."


End file.
